BUSINESS STRATEGY ONLINE

How to Protec Your Job in a Recession

2009-02-10T14:36:00.000-08:00

By Janet Banks and Diane Coutu

As the economy softens, corporate downsizing appears almost inevitable. Don’t panic yet, through. While layoff decions might seem beyond your control, there’s plenty you can do to make sure you retain your job.

In this article, Banks, a former HR executive at Chase Manhattan and FleetBoston Financial, and Coutu, an HBR senior editor and former affiliate scholar at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, describe how to improve your chances of survival. It’s mostly a matter of coolheaded planning they observe. When cuts loom, the first thing to do is act like a survivor. Be confident and cheerful. Research shows that congeniality trumps competence when push cornes to shove. Look to the future by focusing on customers, for without them, no one will have work. Survivors also tend to be versatile, tight budgets demand managers who can wear several hats, so startdemonstrating what other capabilities you can offer. If
you’re, say, a managers who once worked as a teacher, take on a training role.

Remember to be a good corporate citizen: Participation matters now more than ever. It isn’t the time to behave as if work is beneath you or to argue for a new title. When one executive’s departement was folded under the management of a less-experienced colleague, she swallowed her pride and wholeheart-edly supported the hierarchy. Her superiors noticed her commitment and eventually rewarded her with a prestigious appointment.

It’s also important to offer leaders hope and realistic solutions. Energize your colleagues around change, like the VP of learning at a firm undergoing major staff reductions did. He organized a humorous in-house radio show that revived spirits and helped management communicate with employees-and ended up with a promotion.

Source : Harvard Business Review

Three Keys To Staying Ethical In The Age Of Madoff

2009-02-10T14:29:00.000-08:00

By Umaimah Mendhro and Abhinav Sinha

Lessons from executives who kept themselves clean in Pakistan and India, where corruption is the rule.

What separates a Rod Blagojevich from a Patrick Fitzgerald? A Bernard Madoff from a Warren Buffett? What makes such people, at either extreme, so different from any of us? Everything--and not too much.

As citizens of Pakistan and India who are students at Harvard Business School, we spent a considerable amount of time over the past several months interviewing and drawing lessons from 12 leaders in Pakistan and seven in India who are carrying the torch of ethical business behavior. Come factory shutdowns, forced resignations or life threats, they've been standing up against corruption in environments where corruption is the rule.

Conventional wisdom and our own preconceptions hold that a mix of many complex, research-worthy characteristics and influences separates the highly moral from the corrupt. What we found suggested, to the contrary, that it all comes down to three simple things: honesty in use of language; insistence on proper behavior, even ahead of proper values; and a refusal to allow for gray areas.

The highly moral leaders we interviewed, whose colleagues think of them as somewhat crazy and unreasonable, have created personal identities, personal brands of sorts, for always standing up for the right thing. We call them "ethical mavericks." They are moral absolutists. To them, wrong is not defined by context, bribery not by the amount of money involved, and corruption not by how seemingly innocuous an act may be.

One of them, the founder and chief executive officer of a family-owned private business in Pakistan, had to face a formidable client who would not sign a contract until he was "paid a commission." Unwilling to give in, this CEO ended up losing more than 95% of his business and running up losses in the millions of dollars over two years.

He didn't fire a single employee, though. Nor did he try to evaluate the price his organization would have to pay for not being corrupt. And in time, he not only turned his company around but used its down period to train all his top managers to enter a new, and now highly profitable, line of business.

These ethical mavericks all use language to achieve clarity. When we asked the CEO of one of the largest retail businesses in Pakistan why no one before him had raised a red flag about the questionable practices carried out by his company, he said it was because no one thought to call what they observed "unethical" or "wrong"; they just called it "aggressive selling." In other words, corruption remained unquestioned not because people were malicious or greedy or poor but because corrupt behavior came wrapped in smooth, palatable jargon.

The CEO of a major software company in India not only clearly identified corruption at an individual level but also ensured that he communicated it to his entire organization. He not only stood up against corruption at different times during the evolution of the company but also let his employees know the costs the company had borne because of the stands it had taken. All of his employees are shown interactive videos about real, individual experiences.

The ethical mavericks also let their life experiences reinforce their values. Experiences happen, they say, and they confront you with choices about what you want to stand, and be known, for. "A victory against corruption is the best boost for an individual to pursue the right path," said the CEO of a large agribusiness concern in India.

Here are the three lessons we came away with after interviewing our ethical mavericks:
--Call corruption corruption. One of the most important things a leader can impart to his or her organization is an honest and explicit use of language. Corruption comes with many names, new and old. Ferret out the corrupt behaviors concealed in talk of complex derivatives, tax savings and import surcharges. Watch out when people discuss innovation, strategic business practices and competitive advantage. Use your power of language. You've been practicing it since you were two.

--Enforce behavior that creates new values. Behavior results from values, yes. But values can result from behavior too. Use experiences to enforce behavior that creates strong values. We met a young government official in Pakistan who had to spend time shadowing his manager and supporting him in weeding out corrupt employees. He credits his now deeply held opposition to corruption to that one experience.

And, most important:

--Give up on the security of wavering. There are no gray areas when it comes to corruption. Moral absolutism may sound like an archaic and austere concept, but it's a quality all these ethical mavericks share, and it's exactly what is needed to establish a clear, strong, unwavering voice for doing the right thing, especially when the costs are high.

In these difficult times, we can all benefit from more clarity in our language, a hearty dose of accountability in our actions and a handful of unwavering, stable guideposts. The world needs more credible, confident, nonconformist leaders who are worth following.

Source : Forbes.com

U.S. offers $2 trillion bank plan but stocks slump

2009-02-10T14:23:00.000-08:00

By Glenn Somerville

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury chief Timothy Geithner on Tuesday unveiled a new bank rescue plan that would put $2 trillion to work mopping up bad assets and restoring credit, but stock markets plunged on fears it would not work.

Global markets had intensely awaited Geithner's ideas for a plan mixing private and public funding to stabilize a financial system tottering under the weight of bad mortgages, but were disappointed over the scant detail he provided.

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down more than 380 points or 4.6 percent in its biggest one-day percentage drop since December 1, while prices for U.S. government bonds climbed as investors sought safety. The KBW index of bank stocks fell almost 14 percent.

Geithner said lack of public confidence in prior rescue efforts had made it all the more difficult to stop "a dangerous dynamic" in which a lack of credit undercuts the economy and leads to more weakness among banks, worsening the recession.

"This is very complicated to get it right," he said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. "We are going to try to get it right before we give the details so that we don't add further to uncertainty in these markets."

In a speech, on television and in Capitol Hill testimony, Geithner made his case for how the Obama administration plans to handle the roughly $350 billion left in a $700 billion financial bailout fund approved by Congress in October.

He studiously avoided saying whether the administration might have to ask Congress for more money to fix the banks, restore credit and counter recession, but did not rule it out.

"We're going to consult with the Congress carefully to try to make sure the world understands that the resources necessary to solve this will be available over time," Geithner told CNBC, adding:

"The important thing is that ... we send a basic signal, working with the Congress, that we will do what's necessary to fix this."

Market participants, however, were frustrated. "Investors want clarity, simplicity and resolution. This plan is seen as convoluted, obfuscating and clouded," said James Ellman, president of Seacliff Capital in San Francisco.

LEVERAGING PRIVATE MONEY

A centerpiece of the renamed "Financial Stability Plan" is a proposal to set up a public-private investment fund, in partnership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, a bank watchdog, and the Federal Reserve, the U.S. central bank.

Seeded with public money, it would leverage up to $500 billion -- and possibly as much as $1 trillion -- so that toxic assets can be purged from a weakened banking system.

Geithner told an invited audience at the U.S. Treasury that $50 billion in federal rescue funds will be used to try to stem home foreclosures and soften the crushing impact of the deep housing crisis now afflicting the entire economy.

The plan would also expand a Fed program aimed at expanding credit card, student, auto and small business lending.

The program includes an expansion of the Fed's Term Asset-backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), which is aimed at expanding lending for credit cards, student and auto loans.

The lending facility is to expand from its current $200-billion limit, thanks to a jump in Treasury funding to $100 billion from $20 billion, which will provide a platform to enable up to $1 trillion of new consumer lending.

The Fed lending facility will also be able to include commercial mortgage-backed securities as well as mortgage-backed securities packaged by private financial institutions.

The Treasury is tussling with the worst problems in decades, stemming from careless lending that helped fuel a housing crisis that has now dragged the U.S. economy and much of the rest of the world into deep recession.

Geithner warned it will take time to resolve the crisis but his proposals to do so failed to reassure market participants.

"Investors want clarity, simplicity, and resolution. This plan is seen as convoluted, obfuscating, and clouded," said James Ellman, President of Seacliff Capital in San Francisco.

Geithner acknowledged deep skepticism has developed over the fairness and efficiency of a $700-billion bank bailout program approved by Congress in October. About half of that money has been committed, including $250 billion in the form of direct capital injections for troubled banks.

He said leaders of some financial institutions that have received money had squandered the good faith that is needed to make the bank rescue effective.

"The spectacle of huge amounts of taxpayer money being provided to the same institutions that helped cause the crisis, with limited transparency and oversight, added to public distrust," Geithner said.

President Barack Obama said on Monday that cleaning up banks' balance sheets was a priority and didn't rule out the possibility that it will take more money than the $700 billion Congress already has approved to complete the job.

"We don't know yet whether we're going to need additional money or how much additional money we'll need until we see how successful we are at restoring a level of confidence in the marketplace," Obama told a news conference.

(Additional reporting by David Lawder and Mark Felsenthal; Editing by James Dalgleish)

Dubai fund not in talks to sell Barneys

2009-02-08T14:27:00.000-08:00

By Ahmed Jadallah

DJIBOUTI (Reuters) - Dubai government investment agency Istithmar World is not in talks to sell luxury retailer Barneys New York Inc, its parent firm said.

"We have not announced nor (sought) anybody regarding Barneys," Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chairman of Dubai World, told reporters at the opening of port container operator DP World's DPW.DI new terminal in Djibouti on Saturday.

Last month, Bloomberg reported Istithmar World may sell Barneys, less than two years after buying it as the fund struggles with losses and the luxury market slows.

Bloomberg said Istithmar did not want to sell the business for less than the $942 million it paid for it in 2007, and that the state-owned fund had had calls from potential buyers and would sell its entire stake.

Istithmar World is a unit of state-owned Dubai World and one of the investment agencies established by Dubai's ruler to invest the emirate's wealth abroad.

Dubai World owns of DP World, one of the world's largest container operators, whose new Doraleh terminal in Djibouti has a capacity of 1.2 million TEU (twenty foot equivalent container units) per year.

This was expected to rise to 3 million TEU "over time," DP World said in a statement.

DP World said last month it was reviewing all expansion projects, cutting costs and freezing recruitment as growth slows in 2009.

Last week, Moody's Investor Service said it was considering downgrading the debt rating of DP World along with five other Dubai firms due to the escalating global financial crisis.

But DP World's refinancing pressure was low in the near term as its debt -- most of which consists of $1.5 billion worth of Islamic bonds, sukuk, and $1.75 billion worth of bonds -- was mostly long term in nature, Standard Chartered said in a note published on Thursday.

The note also said DP World, although vulnerable to the global downturn, was expecting to post a profit of $675 million, a 33 percent increase from 2007.

DP World declined to give reporters an earnings forecast in a conference call on January 26 in which its chief financial officer gave an update on its business.

DP World DPW.DI shares have lost more than 80 percent of their value since an IPO in 2007 on NASDAQ Dubai, formerly Dubai International Financial Exchange, when it listed at $1.30 per share.

Shares closed up 5.26 percent at $0.20 per share on Sunday.

(Writing by Raissa Kasolowsky; editing by Elaine Hardcastle)

Source : Reuters

The Strategy Owning the Right Risks

2009-02-04T14:19:00.000-08:00

By Kevin Buehler, Andrew Freeman, and Ron Hulme

In the 1970 a revolution occurred in the field of corporate strategy. A boom in mergers and acquisitions launched new professions in M & A banking, M & A law, and strategy consulting, and companies started to focus on owning businesses in which they had a competitive advantage. At the same time, another revolution occurred in how financial services companies understood, bought, and sold risk – described in the authors’ compaion article in the issue, “The New Arsenal of Risk Management.” Now these two revolutions are coming together to trigger e third in the corporate approach to risk management.

Engineering and dynamically managing a company’s risk portfolio has become the organizing principle for strategic choice. When companies focus on the risks for which they are naturally advantaged, they can typically support higher debt levels and save on operating cocts. McKinsey’s Buehler, Freeman, and Hulme describe five steps to help corporate managers adjust to the third revolution: 1) dentify and ubderstand your major risks; 2) decide which risks are natural; 3) determine your capacity and appetite for risk; 4) embed risk in all decisions and processes, including investment, commercial, financial, and operational, and 5) align govermance and organization around risk.

TXU is one company that has already successfully adapted. Following the 2002 deregulation of wholesale and retail electricity markets in the U.S. state of Texas, TXU embarked on an ambitious risk-return restructuring program that relied on sophisticated risk-management tools to quantify its risk capacity. The program led to share price increases that created more than $32 billion in value before the company was taken private in the largest leveraged buyout in history

Source : Harvard Business Review

Cisco profit beats expectations

2009-02-04T14:11:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Cisco Systems Inc posted higher-than-expected quarterly earnings as the network equipment maker managed to contain costs, even as revenue fell for the first quarter in more than five years.

Shares of Cisco rose nearly 2 percent in cautious trade ahead of the company's earnings conference call, where Chief Executive John Chambers is expected to outline his outlook.

Chambers said in a statement that Cisco intends to "accelerate the alignment of our resources" and gradually decrease operating expenses.

Net profit for the fiscal second quarter ended January 24 fell to $1.5 billion, or 26 cents per share, from $2.1 billion, or 33 cents a share.

Profit excluding items fell to 32 cents a share from 38 cents, exceeding the market's average forecast of 30 cents a share according to Reuters Estimates.

"The numbers look pretty good, all things considered in the tough environment. The EPS beat shows strong cost containment in an environment of reduced demand," said Mark Sue, analyst at RBC Capital.

Revenue fell 7.5 percent to $9.1 billion, the first year-on-year decline since 2003, as the economic downturn forced companies to cut back on technology spending.

Wall Street analysts on average had expected revenue of $9.0 billion, according to Reuters Estimates. In November, Cisco forecast a 5 to 10 percent year-on-year decline.

The results and outlook are closely watched as an early indicator of changes in technology spending. Cisco is one of the first high-tech companies to report results that include most of January.

Tighter credit and a hazy economic outlook has made it harder for companies to invest in big-ticket technology items such as Cisco's routers. A Cisco CRS-1, for example, costs around $500,000 to $1 million.

Cisco and other network equipment makers have said until recently that growing use of the Internet, particularly online video, would help shelter them from the recession.

Some vendors had hoped that network upgrades by phone companies would help buffer the impact of declining corporate spending, but tight credit and sluggish consumer spending has hit U.S. phone and cable service providers much harder than many expected.

Top U.S. phone companies AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc have said they are trimming capital spending in 2009. AT&T expects to cut spending by 10 to 15 percent from 2008.

Cisco shares rose to around $16.20 in after-hours trade, after closing up 1.41 percent at $15.84.

(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando; editing by Richard Chang)

Source : Reuters

The Concert Business: Why Live Nation Wants To Merge

2009-02-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

By David K. Randall

A combined company could become the Microsoft of the entertainment industry. Published reports have Live Nation, the world's largest concert promoter, in talks to merge with either Ticketmaster Entertainment or AEG Worldwide. The company is reportedly closer to making a deal with Ticketmaster.

It's easy to see why. Live Nation (nyse: LYV - news - people ) and Ticketmaster are set to square off directly for the first time. Live Nation debuted its own ticketing service in January, which Ticketmaster estimated would take approximately 20% of its business. Ticketmaster countered by acquiring Front Line Management to help it compete with the string of deals Live Nation signed with Madonna, Jay-Z and U2 last year.

The $200 million Live Nation spent on those deals, which give it a slice of each artist's concert, album and merchandise revenue, may be the catalyst for it to seek a merger. A larger combined company without any additional debt may be better able to handle Live Nation's deals with talent, said Alan Gould, an analyst at Natixis Bleichroeder in New York.

"We have watched the two sides playing a game of mutually assured destruction over the last year, with both stocks seemingly going down with each move," he said.

A spokesman Live Nation declined to comment on the reported merger. Representatives from AEG (other-otc: AEGXY.PK - news - people ) Worldwide and Ticketmaster Entertainment did not respond to calls for comment.

The concert business faces a tough economic climate, as consumers pare back spending on entertainment. High ticket prices may reduce consumers' ability to spend money on high-margin areas like beer and food sales once they reach the venue, a profitable area that accounts for more than 40% of Live Nation's total revenue. It will also be difficult to grow sponsors, Gould notes, which currently account for 24% of Live Nation's overall revenue.

Despite the introduction of its own ticketing service, Live Nation projected Ticketmaster would still sell tickets for approximately 60% of its events. Bringing ticket sales and promotion under one roof would reduce costs and boost margins.
The market reacted strongly to the news, pushing the stock of both companies up nearly 15% in early trading.

But investor enthusiasm is premature. A combined Live Nation-Ticketmaster will face high-profile headwinds from an Obama Justice Department inquiry into whether the new company would constitute a monopoly in the struggling music industry.

If AEG does not merge with Live Nation, it will argue that bringing the nation's largest ticketing system, the majority of arenas and amphitheaters and an artist management division responsible for top acts like Guns N' Roses, Jimmy Buffett and Miley Cyrus under one roof will reduce its ability to compete. They'd be right.

Source : Forbes.com

The Tools The New Arsenal of Risk Management

2009-02-03T13:28:00.000-08:00

By Kevin Buehler, Andrew Freeman, and Ron Hulme

The global banking system is facing a severe liquidity crises. In the first half of 2008, major financial institutions wrote off nearly $400 billion, causing banks around the world to initiate emergency measures. Similar crises have occurred within recent memory. Think of S & Ls, the dot-com bust, and Enron. Risk is quite simply, a fact of corporate life-but because risk-management research has increasingly emphasized mathematical modeling, managers may find it incomprehensible and thus shy away from powerful tools and markets for creating value.

Buehler, Freeman, and Hulme, all with McKinsey, describe the evolution of risk management since the 1970s, show how new markets have changed the land-scape in both financial services and the energy sector, and explain what it takes to compete in the current environment, To demonstrate how significant a factor risk can be when incorporated into strategy and oeganization, they take the case of Goldman Sachs-which, despite its reliance on highly volatile trading revenues, has so far avoided the big write-offs that have afficted its leading cometitors. The authors belive that this is because Goldman takes the antithesis of the typical corpate approach-its culture embraces rather than avoids risk. And they say, Goldman very efficiently employs all four of the follwing factors : quantitative professionals, strong oversight, partnership investment, and a clear statement of business principles, with emphasis on preserving the company’s reputation.

Staying on the sidelines of risk management may have shielded some companies from crisis, but it has also prevented them from growing as quickly as they might have. In their companion article, “Owing the Right Risks,” the authors outline a process that will enable executive in any company to incorporate risk into their strategy decision making

In Recession, Business Keeps Going Green

2009-02-03T13:16:00.000-08:00

by Joel Makower

Given all that's been going on—the global economic meltdown and the tectonic political shifts—going green should be the last thing on the mind of any CEO. In such challenging times, "saving the Earth" should rightfully take a back seat to "saving the business."

Or, maybe it need not? Consider these announcements—all since Nov. 4, Election Day:

• Bank of America (BAC) plans to phase out loans to companies that use mountaintop extraction as their primary means of coal production. It also will give $1 million to Harvard to study the implications of capturing the greenhouse gas emissions generated by burning coal.

• Clorox (CLX) has expanded its year-old Green Works line of eco-friendly cleaners, which has met with such success that the company raised its sales projections six times in 12 months.

• Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), the largest bottler of Coke beverages, will more than double the size of its fleet of hybrid vehicles. It will soon have 327 green trucks on the road in the U.S. and Canada.

• Heinz (HNZ), Sodexo (EXHO.PA), Sysco (SYY), and Unilever (UN) are among 30 large growers, food buyers, and environmental groups that formed the Stewardship Index for Specialty Crops, a coalition to incorporate sustainability from the field to the table for specialty crops.

• Wal-Mart (WMT) plans to partner with the World Environment Center to help more than two dozen suppliers in El Salvador and Guatemala improve energy and water savings and reduce waste, raw material use, and emissions.

I could go on.
Only Nudging the Needle

In good times and bad, the greening of mainstream business marches on. Although the people—and their political representatives—have only recently taken notice, companies have been integrating environmental thinking into their operations increasingly for years.

It's all good, but it's not good enough. It's true that more companies are doing more things to correct years of environmental neglect. But all these efforts collectively move the needle of environmental progress only slightly, if at all.

To be sure, there's much to celebrate. We're using an ever-shrinking amount of energy, water, and toxic materials to produce a unit of gross domestic product. Green building is on the rise, spurring technologies that save energy and money while creating more healthful workplaces. There is a green race taking place in the automobile industry, with every major manufacturer planning to introduce electric vehicles. The leading consumer product companies and retailers are starting to rigorously assess the environmental impact of their products using sophisticated metrics, sending signals along the supply chain that tomorrow's products will need to hew to higher levels of environmental responsibility.
An Issue of Scale

But on balance, despite a growing chorus of corporate commitments and actions, I'm less optimistic that these activities, in aggregate, are addressing planetary problems at sufficient scale and speed. President Obama's stimulus plan will help create demand for some green technologies, but they won't necessarily move companies to transform their operations in ways that dramatically improve efficiencies and reduce pollution and waste.

Source : Businessweek.com

China: The new wind superpower

2009-02-03T13:01:00.000-08:00

The numbers are in, and as expected 2008 set a record year for the worldwide wind industry as new wind farms generating a total of 27,000 megawatts of greenhouse gas-free electricity came online, according to the Global Wind Energy Council.

The quick-click headline was that the United States overtook the world’s green superpower, Germany, by installing 8,358 megawatts in 2008 - a 50% jump from the previous year and enough wind energy to power two million American homes. But the big story this year will be China’s rapid emergence as the next global wind power.

China last year doubled its wind energy capacity - for the fourth straight year - adding 6,300 megawatts of new electricity generation for a total capacity of 12,210 megawatts. A third of the world’s new wind capacity last year was installed in Asia, with China accounting for 73% of that power. China reached its 2010 target of generating 5,000 megawatts of wind-powered electricity in 2007 and is expected to hit its 2030 goal of 30,000 megawatts years early.

“In 2009, new installed capacity is expected to nearly double again, which will be one third or more of the world’s total new installed capacity for the year,” Li Junfeng, Secretary General of the Chinese Renewable Energy Industry Association, said in a statement.

Of course, 30,000 megawatts of wind is but a flicker in a country with more than 300,000 megawatts of coal-fired energy online but it’s huge by world standards and has spawned both a burgeoning domestic wind industry and growing investment by overseas companies. Denmark’s Vestas, the world’s largest turbine maker, will open its fifth factory in China this year and it received orders for another 200 megawatts’ worth of turbines at the end of 2008. General Electric (GE), one of only two U.S. turbine makers, also operates a factory in China and in January the company announced a joint venture with China’s A-Power Energy Generation to make turbine gearboxes. In a separate deal with A-Power, GE will supply the company with 900 turbine gearboxes starting next year.

As the financial crisis slows growth in the U.S. and Europe, India is another potential wind power. It ended 2008 with 9,645 megawatts of wind energy and added more capacity that year - 1,800 megawatts - than former world leaders Germany and Spain. Indian turbine maker Suzlon also has been moving onto European turf, relocating its international headquarters to Denmark and acquiring German turbine manufacturer REPower.

Installed global wind capacity now stands at 120.8 gigawatts with the 2008 turbine market worth $47.5 billion, according to the Global Wind Energy Council.

Source : CNNMoney.com

Google unveils software to explore world's oceans

2009-02-02T14:41:00.000-08:00

By Paul Rogers, Mercury News

Starting today, if you want to explore the world's oceans — from the bottom of Monterey Bay to Australia's Great Barrier Reef — you won't need a scuba tank or submarine, only a home computer and Internet connection.

Expanding its popular Google Earth software, Mountain View-based Google on Monday unveiled an aquatic component, Google Ocean, that the company said "aims to turn everyone into Jacques Cousteau.''

The new feature, rolled out at a news conference in San Francisco attended by oceanographers and former Vice President Al Gore, combines satellite imagery, underwater photographs, video and scientific data to allow users to see 3-D images of the ocean floor, along with features like the location of shipwrecks and coral reefs.

Marine scientists predicted that the free software will become an important new tool in expanding the public's understanding of the oceans and the environmental challenges facing them. They also said it would be widely embraced by scientists, who are expected to embed massive amounts of data onto the maps.

"Not just sober scientists but the whole world can use this as a way to know the whole world,'' said oceanographer Sylvia Earle, National Geographic explorer-in-residence. "It took a long time for me to be able to see a turtle underwater, now any little kid can do it,'' Earle said.

Google assembled the new software after meeting last year with many of the world's top marine scientists.

The final product — an automatic download with latest version of Google Earth 5.0 — also includes 20 massive data sets including photos and video of marine animals, the boundaries of the world's marine protected areas, daily sea surface temperature changes and arctic sea ice.

The primary information to create the images came from the U.S. Navy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

Like Google Earth, which was launched in June 2005, officials expect Google Ocean to offer increasingly detailed information over time as people add new photos and data. The resulting information will not only allow people to see the world, but how it's changing.

During the news conference, Gore talked about his visit to Glacier National Park in the 1990s. While Google Earth images zoomed in on Grinnell Glacier, Gore noted how much it has melted in the past two decades. The new software also features historic information that shows the glacier's size shrinking since 1991.

"It's practically not even a glacier anymore," Gore said. "When I was there not long ago I walked where that pool of water has formed. This is an extremely powerful new tool.

"One of my fondest hopes is that people around the world will use Google Earth to see for themselves the reality of what is happening because of the climate crisis."

Monday's event, a veritable lovefest of ocean leaders, also featured singer Jimmy Buffett, who has worked to protect manatees and other species in Florida. "I play by the water a lot — I don't know who on the planet wouldn't want to go to a tropical climate, particularly this time of year,'' Buffett said as Google Earth images on the screen behind him zoomed around the ocean floor and mountains on the Hawaiian Islands while his song "Margaritaville'' played. "When people go on exhibitions they come back as conservationists.''

Google Earth basically works by creating maps that combine satellite photograph, aerial photography and GIS data to build 3-D images so that computer users can "fly" anywhere like in a video game, from above the Earth down to view mountains, coastlines, cities, even streets and houses. In earlier versions of the software, users could see oceans with some data, but only in two dimensions.

The project is only a first step however. Oceans cover 70 percent of the world's surface, and detailed, high-resolution photographs don't exist for much of the bottom.

Taking high-resolution photographs of every square foot, along with detailed sonar images, will require great investments in time and money.

"It would take billions of dollars. You'd need fleets of unmanned underwater vehicles operating in formation, and some countries wouldn't even let you explore their territorial waters," said Marcia McNutt, president of Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute based in Moss Landing. "It would take at least 25 years."

But previous generations have explored the land and the moon and perhaps the coming generation will focus on the oceans, several scientists said today.

"Sometimes it is tempting for us to think we have explored every thing we have to explore," said Terry Garcia, executive vice president of the National Geographic Society. "A tourist can fly to nearly everywhere on the planet, and satellites have mapped nearly every square inch, but there are still places not explored, mysteries still to be answered."

Going Green to Make Green

2009-01-31T14:48:00.000-08:00

By LAURA COVERSON
On a sunny winter's day in Southern California, a group of students sits in windowless classroom at Los Angeles Trade and Technical College, eyeing the contents of small bottles of alternative fuels.

Blue collar workers get help finding and training for green jobs.

"This is actually biodiesel, but this is not derived from the soy bean, this one is actually a plant," explains associate professor Jess Guerra to the group.

Guerra teaches a "Diesel Technology" class to those hoping to become part of the green work force, where she instructs the fine points of biofuels. It's a technology that could be just one of the businesses with the potential to drive the U.S. economy right out of the ditch.

Labor experts predict renewable energy and energy efficiency industries could create as many as 37 million jobs -- and students at technical colleges like this one are counting on it.

With President Barack Obama's pledge this week to renew the U.S. economy and jump-start the nation's clean energy future, it's a job outlook that's pretty bright.

New Obama strategy could lower mortgage costs

2009-01-31T14:42:00.000-08:00

By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- The Obama administration will soon announce a new economic strategy that would lower mortgage costs and extend credit to small businesses, the President said in his weekly radio and Internet address on Saturday.

"Soon my Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner, will announce a new strategy for reviving our financial system that gets credit flowing to businesses and families," President Obama said.

"We'll help lower mortgage costs and extend loans to small businesses so they can create jobs. We'll ensure that CEOs are not draining funds that should be advancing our recovery.
"And we will insist on unprecedented transparency, rigorous oversight, and clear accountability -- so taxpayers know how their money is being spent and whether it is achieving results." Read the full address.

While the financial rescue plan passed by Congress last year helped avoid a financial collapse, Obama said that "too often taxpayer dollars have been spent without transparency or accountability." He also charged that while banks have received help, others who need loans -- homeowners, students and small businesses -- have had to fend on their own.

This week, the House of Representatives passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, a stimulus that includes a combination of tax cuts for families and investments in energy dependence and infrastructure. Obama said the stimulus will save or create more than 3 million jobs over the next few years, and urged the Senate to also pass the plan.

Obama noted that the economic slowdown has already cost the country tens of thousands of jobs in January. "And the picture is likely to get worse before it gets better," he said.
In his address, Obama said that no one bill can cure the economy's problems. As jobs are created, it is also necessary to make sure the markets are stable, credit is flowing and families can keep their homes, he said.

UAE ranks No 7 in world list of toy importers

2009-01-31T14:27:00.000-08:00

by Andy Sambidge
The UAE has moved up to seventh in a world list of toy importers as the number of companies doing business in the country has surged.

Latest figures reveal that within the last year, the number of UAE toy importers has increased by almost 4,000 to 18,017 - importing nearly 100 categories of toys.

And one of the world's largest toy stores, Hamleys, has recently opened in The Dubai Mall is the latest recognition of a growing market in the emirate.
The statistics come as international toy manufacturers seek a slice of the booming regional toy industry at the Middle East Toy Fair.

Elisabeth Brehl, managing director of organisers, Epoc Messe Frankfurt, said: "This time last year, UAE was the eighth largest nation with toy import activities, but the latest market developments have boosted it to rank seventh among the top 10 toy importing countries in the world."

Figures for Jan. 1, 2004 to the present date show the US at the top of the list, followed by the UK, China, Iran, India, Hong Kong, UAE, Canada, Thailand and Australia.

Brehl added that the positive trend for the toy industry is not just limited to the UAE, but the entire Middle East is characterised by a high population of children.

Iran at number four in the list imports nine percent of toys in 388 categories, using a total of 15,849 importers.

The Middle East Toy Fair is scheduled to take place at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre from March 23-25, 2009.

Source : ArabianBusiness.com

Tough times dim Wall Street's honeymoon with Obama

2009-01-10T14:14:00.000-08:00

By Herbert Lash
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's honeymoon with President-elect Barack Obama appears to be under strain just five trading days into the New Year and putting a damper on the outlook for stocks in 2009.

After plunging to an 11-year low in November, stocks have rallied about 20 percent on enthusiasm over Obama's picks for his economic team, and hopes his planned stimulus package would end the U.S. recession by the second half of this year.

But a gloomy private sector jobs report, dire warnings from corporate America, Federal Reserve worries about deflation and a bleak U.S. budget outlook this week rekindled investor fears that the recession will be far more severe than expected.

"I think we're torn between optimism (about) the new administration and stimulus plans and the awful economic outlook," said Frank Lesh, a futures analyst and broker at FuturePath Trading LLC in Chicago.

The Dow fell but most stocks rose on Thursday as Obama sought to rally support for a massive fiscal stimulus package by warning that without bold action the U.S. recession -- already looming as the worst since World War II -- could drag on for years.

Aides have previously said they are discussing $775 billion in stimulus but Obama did not give a dollar figure in a speech on the economy at George Mason University in Washington.

The speech offered scant details about the stimulus plan and failed to meet Wall Street's expectations.

The first five trading days of January are often an early sign of how the year will end, according to the Stock Trader's Almanac.

The benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 Index .SPX -- the most widely watched index among institutional investors -- closed up 0.34 percent at 909.73 on Thursday, and is up 0.72 percent for the year.

Since the collapse of investment bank Lehman Brothers in September sent markets into freefall, stock buyers have lacked conviction in the rally's sustainability.

Many Americans are unable to tap any form of credit, fear they will be laid off from their jobs and are hunkering down, paying off debt.

U.S. gross domestic product is expected to shrink for four straight quarters ending June 30, 2009, the longest period of contraction on records dating back to 1947.

When data on last year's fourth quarter is released, the U.S. economy will likely have contracted more than 5 percent, if not more, raising a red flag for many investors. It will be the biggest drop since a 6.4 contraction in the first quarter of 1982.

"The biggest risk that we're seeing today is the potential for deflation," said Enrique Chang, chief investment officer at Kansas City, Missouri-based American Century Investments.

"There's nothing good about an environment where you have deflation. It's probably worse than when you have too much inflation."
Chang said that Obama, who will be sworn in January 20, and the new administration will do everything they can to avert deflation, a decline in prices that can lead to lower economic activity and the erosion of asset values.

"This forced level of savings at this particular time in the economy is very dangerous. So to me that doesn't bode well for any asset class. Our view on equities is cautious, our view on bonds is cautious," Chang said.

Others see a rebound in stocks by year's end.

Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, said periods of financial demise are more often followed by spectacular investment opportunities than examples of persistent, ongoing economic ruin.

Stocks have already priced in the bleak economic data, he said.

"It would really take amazingly terrible data to get the stock market much lower," Paulsen told Reuters on Wednesday.

The size of Obama's fiscal stimulus, along with cheaper stock valuations, lower oil prices and lots of cash seeking new investment point to a stock rally this year, said Bob Doll, vice chairman and chief investment officer of global equities at asset manager BlackRock Inc (BLK.N).

"We believe an earnings rebound is likely in 2010, the signs of which will become evident in 2009," Doll said in notes released on Wednesday with his 2009 forecast.

"Under this scenario, we believe a year-end S&P target of 1,000 to 1,050 would be reasonable," he said.

Stocks surged in December on relief the global financial system did not slide into the abyss after Lehman Brothers' failure in September, said David Joy, chief markets strategist at RiverSource Investments in Minneapolis.

Having overcome that concern, investors are now nervous about the consumer sector, he said.

"Once again people are focused on the real-time current economic strength, and the numbers are terrible," Joy said.

But he said the fiscal stimulus being thrown at the U.S. economy, especially since infrastructure spending will be "shovel-ready" and not go through banks, will spur growth in the second half of 2009.

Any signs that employment and house prices are rising will turn around consumer sentiment and point to recovery, Joy said.

Until then, RiverSource is biding its time and buying beaten-down securities, he said.

"We're more than happy to buy assets that are cheap and wait to be rewarded down the road when all this begins to dissipate," Joy said.

Source : Reuters.com

Best Companies to Work For (Fortune 2008) : Google

2008-12-24T23:55:00.001-08:00

What makes it so great?

Back in our No. 1 spot, Google continued to mint millionaires as the stock cracked $700. The company gives stock options to 99% of employees. Headquarters: Mountain View, CA. 2006 revenue ($ millions): 10,605.

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.

As a first step to fulfilling that mission, Google's founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed a new approach to online search that took root in a Stanford University dorm room and quickly spread to information seekers around the globe. Google is now widely recognized as the world's largest search engine -- an easy-to-use free service that usually returns relevant results in a fraction of a second.

When you visit www.google.com or one of the dozens of other Google domains, you'll be able to find information in many different languages; check stock quotes, maps, and news headlines; lookup phonebook listings for every city in the United States; search billions of images and peruse the world's largest archive of Usenet messages -- more than 1 billion posts dating back to 1981.

We also provide ways to access all this information without making a special trip to the Google homepage. The Google Toolbar enables you to conduct a Google search from anywhere on the web. And for those times when you're away from your PC altogether, Google can be used from a number of wireless platforms including WAP and i-mode phones.

Google's utility and ease of use have made it one of the world's best known brands almost entirely through word of mouth from satisfied users. As a business, Google generates revenue by providing advertisers with the opportunity to deliver measurable, cost-effective online advertising that is relevant to the information displayed on any given page. This makes the advertising useful to you as well as to the advertiser placing it. We believe you should know when someone has paid to put a message in front of you, so we always distinguish ads from the search results or other content on a page. We don't sell placement in the search results themselves, or allow people to pay for a higher ranking there.

Thousands of advertisers use our Google AdWords program to promote their products and services on the web with targeted advertising, and we believe AdWords is the largest program of its kind. In addition, thousands of web site managers take advantage of our Google AdSense program to deliver ads relevant to the content on their sites, improving their ability to generate revenue and enhancing the experience for their users.

To learn more about Google, click on the link at the left for the area that most interests you. Or type what you want to find into our search box and hit enter. Once you do, you'll be on your way to understanding why others say, "Google is the closest thing the Web has to an ultimate answer machine."

What's a Google?

"Googol" is the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros. The term was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner, and was popularized in the book, "Mathematics and the Imagination" by Kasner and James Newman. Google's play on the term reflects the company's mission to organize the immense amount of information available on the web.

Business Overview

As with its technology, Google has chosen to ignore conventional wisdom in designing its business. The company started with seed money from angel investors and brought together two competing venture capital firms to fund its first equity round. While the dotcom boom exploded around it and competitors spent millions on marketing campaigns to "build brand," Google focused instead on quietly building a better search engine.

The word quickly spread from one satisfied user to another. With superior search technology and a high volume of traffic at its Google.com site, Google's managers identified two initial opportunities for generating revenue: search services and advertising.

Google grows and business blooms

Over time, these two business lines evolved into complementary networks. Google AdWords advertisers create ads to drive qualified traffic to their sites and generate leads. Google publishing partners deliver those ads targeted to relevant search results powered by Google AdSense. With AdSense, the publisher shares in the revenue generated when readers click on the ads.

For sites wishing to have more control over their intranet or site searches, Google developed the Google Search Appliance, a scalable and secure appliance that delivers accurate search results across any number of documents.

Google continues to think about ways in which technology can improve upon existing ways of doing business. New areas are explored, ideas prototyped and budding services nurtured to make them more useful to advertisers and publishers. However, no matter how distant Google's business model grows from its origins, the root remains providing useful and relevant information to those who are the most important part of the ecosystem – the millions of individuals around the world who rely on Google search to provide the answers they are seeking.

Seven Ways to Fail Big

2008-12-24T22:35:00.000-08:00

Paul B Carroll and Chunka Mul

Lessons from The Most Inexecusable Business Failures of The Past 25 years

What causes companies to fail spectacularly ? A recent study of 750 of the biggest U.S. business disasters of the past 25 years reveals that seven popular but risky strategies are often to blame.

Drawing on that extensive research, Carroll, a journalist, and Mul, a fellow at Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, describe seven sirens that lure companies onto the rocks.

Diamond is a management and technology consulting firm. Recognizing that information and technology shape market dynamics, Diamond’s small teams of experts work across functional and organizational boundaries to improve growth and profitability. Since the greatest value in a strategy, and its highest risk, resides in its implementation, Diamond also provides proven execution capabilities. We deliver three critical elements to every project: fact-based objectivity, spirited collaboration, and sustainable results. Diamond is headquartered in Chicago, with locations in Hartford, New York, Washington D.C., London, and Mumbai. Diamond is publicly traded on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol "DTPI."

One is the synergy mirage hoped for but nonexistent merger synergies. Group dis ability insure Unum unwittingly pursued these when it acquired individual disability insurer Provident, assuming the units could cross sell each other's products. It turns out they had entirely different sales models and customers.

Pseudo-adjacencies aslo lead companies astray, as school bus operator Laidiaw learned when it spent billions on a move into ambulance services. The firm expected its logistics expertise to carry over but discovered ambulances were not a transportation business but a highly regulated health care business demanding skills it sorely lacked.

Faulty financial engineering,aggressive financial practices don't necessarily lead to fraud, but they can be dicey. The stakes are high-brands and reputations and entire businesses can crumbles as a consequence, and corporate officers may be exposed to massive fines and even prison.

Stubbornly staying the course, redoubling your investment in your current strategy in response to market signals is a strategy itself, and it can lead to disaster. Executives too often kid themselves into thinking that problem isn't so severe or delay any reaction until it is too late.

Bets on the wrong technology, the huge rewards for breakthrough product and services understandably inspire many companies to search relentlessly for the next Google or eBay or iPod. Still, in our research we discovered that many technology-dependent strategies were ill-conceived from the get-go. No amount of luck or sophisticated execution could have saved them. To keep pursuing the strategies that produced these failures-some quite spectacular-companies had to go to great lengths to deceive themselves.

Rushing to consolidate are all dangerous, too, as Conseco, Kodak, Motorola, and Ames can attest. Our research shows that it is sometimes better to sit back and let others fumble through consolidation. Though there's more glory in being buyer, it may be wiser to sell and pocket the cash before industry condition deteriorate.

And a rollup of almost any kind is a high-wire act in which a slight market downtum is all it takes to finish you off. Research shows that more than two-thirds of roll-ups have failed to create any value for investors.

If the executives at these companies had taken a closer look at history, they might have avoided billions in losses. But even experienced teams can fall into these traps. The best way to safeguard your company against them is to institute a formal strategy review by a devi’s advocate panel not involved in strategy development. Its members must have license to ask tough questions, say the authors, who offer guidelines to help panels focus on facts, tes assumptions, and bring to light flaws in the strategy that could lead to costly blunders. Lean more How Harvard Business Review September 2008

Source : Harvard Business Review

How Pixar Fosters Collective creativity

2008-12-17T15:56:00.000-08:00

Pixar Animation Studios is an Academy Award ®-winning computer animation studio with the technical, creative and production capabilities to create a new generation of animated feature films, merchandise and other related products. Pixar's objective is to combine proprietary technology and world-class creative talent to develop computer-animated feature films with memorable characters and heartwarming stories that appeal to audiences of all ages.

Pixar Animation Studios, a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company, is an Academy Award®-winning film studio with world-renowned technical, creative and production capabilities in the art of computer animation. Creator of some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time, including "Toy Story," "Finding Nemo," "The Incredibles," "Cars," "Ratatouille," and most recently, "WALL•E." The Northern California studio has won 21 Academy Awards and its nine films have grossed more than $4.5 billion at the worldwide box office to date. The next film release from Disney•Pixar is UP (May 29, 2009).

Toy Story, released November 22, 1995, reflects more than nine years of creative and technical achievements. The film received tremendous critical acclaim and became the highest grossing film of 1995, generating $362 million in worldwide box office receipts. Toy Story's director and Disney · Pixar's chief creative officer, John Lasseter, received a Special Achievement Academy Award® for his "inspired leadership of the Pixar Toy Story team resulting in the first feature-length computer animated film."

Pixar has since released A Bug's Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles. The six films combined have grossed more than $3.2 billion at the worldwide box office, and Pixar now has six of the top grossing animated films of all time. Toy Story 2, at the time of release, broke numerous opening weekend records all over the world and won a Golden Globe award for Best Picture, Musical or Comedy in 1999.

In 2001, Pixar released the Academy Award®-winning Monsters, Inc., which reached over $100 million at the domestic box office in just 9 days, faster than any animated film in history at the time of its release. Monsters, Inc.'s opening-weekend gross of $62.6 million marked the largest 3-day opening ever for an animated film, the largest 3-day opening in the history of The Walt Disney Studios, the largest 3-day opening in the history of Pixar Animation Studios, and the sixth-largest opening in industry history - records that Monsters, Inc. held until the release of Finding Nemo.

On May 30, 2003, Pixar released Finding Nemo which broke every one of Monsters, Inc.'s opening weekend box office records that had been set only 18-months earlier. Finding Nemo generated $865 million at the global box office and received the Academy Award® for Best Animated Feature Film.

The Incredibles, released in 2004, continued Pixar's success both critically and at the box-office. The film grossed $70.2 million in its first weekend of release in the United States and performed similarly throughout the rest of the world. The film earned more than $620 million worldwide, elevating it to the second highest grossing Pixar film and amongst the 25 highest grossing film of all time. In addition to a multitude of prestigious accolades, praise for The Incredibles has culiminated in a Pixar-record: four Academy Award® nominations.

Directed by Academy Award®-winner John Lasseter, "Cars" opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. “Cars” was the 2007 Golden Globe winner for Best Animated Feature Film and received Academy Award® nominations for Best Animated Feature Film and Best Music - Original Song. The film also won the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. "Cars" was the #1 animated film on DVD for 2006, and the Disney•Pixar's "Cars" Original Motion Picture Soundtrack debuted in June 2006 at #8, making it the first Pixar soundtrack to enter the Billboard Top 10 and to ship gold.

Many people believe that good iesa are rarer and more valuable than good people, Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios, couldn’t disagree more. That notion, he says, is rooted in a misguided view of creativity that exg-gerates the importance of the initial ideas in devel-opening an original product. And it reflects a profound misunderstanding of how to manage the large risks inherent in producing breakthroughs.

In filmmaking and many other kinds of complex product development, creativity involves a large number of people from different disciplines working effectively together to solve a great many inherently unforeseeable problems. The trick to fostering collective creativity. Catmull says, is threefold : Place the creative authority for product development firmly in the hands of the project learders (as opposed to corporate executives), build a culture and processes that encourage people to share their work-in-progress and support one another as peers; and dismantle the natural barriers that divide disciplines.

Mindful of the rise and fall of so many tech companies, Catmull has also sought ways to continuslly challenge Pixar’s assumptions and search for the flaws that could destroy its culture. Clear values. Constant communication, routine postmortems, and the regular injection of outsiders who will challenge the status quo are necessary but not enough to stay on the rails. Strong leadership is essential to make sure people don’t pay lip service to those standards. For example. Catmull comes to the orientation sessions for all new hires, where he ta lks about the mistakes Pixar has made so people don’t assume that just because the company is successful, everything it does is right. Learn more How Pixar Fosters Collective Creativity

Source : Harvard Business Review

Why Toyota wants GM to be saved

2008-12-15T18:43:00.000-08:00

By Chris Isidore
Detroit's Big Three aren't the only automotive companies that want to see the government step in with some much needed financial help.

Overseas automakers, most notably Toyota Motor, all endorse some form of federal aid to keep General Motors (GM, Fortune 500), Chrysler LLC and possibly Ford Motor (F, Fortune 500) out of bankruptcy.

The Senate killed an effort to get the automakers a stopgap loan last week and now the Bush administration has said it is looking at providing the automakers help from the $700 billion approved to bailout banks and Wall Street firms.

"We support measures to help the industry," said Toyota Motor (TM) spokeswoman Mira Sleilati. "We just want a strong, competitive healthy industry."

This may seem surprising at first, especially when you consider that much of the opposition to the auto bailout was from senators from Southern states home to auto plants operated by Asian auto companies, such as Alabama and South Carolina. But the Asian automakers insist they never lobbied against such help for the Big Three.

And this makes sense once you take a closer look at the dynamics of the auto industry and how intertwined the fates of all the companies are.

Here's why Toyota, Honda Motor (HMC) and other Asian auto manufacturers clearly believe they are all better off with GM and Chrysler surviving than if they go out of business.
Collateral damage

The overseas automakers, who between them produce more than 3 million vehicles a year at U.S. plants, all worry their production would be hurt if one of the U.S. automakers went under. That's because a Big Three failure would likely lead to widespread bankruptcies in the auto parts supplier industry.

Erich Merkle, lead auto analyst with the consulting firm Crowe Horwath LLP, said there is much overlap between the automakers' suppliers. Since most parts in an automobile have only a single supplier producing them, the disruptions in production will be severe and prolonged.

"It could take months for a Toyota to work through that and resume normal production," he said.

Merkle said the current network of auto suppliers, manufacturers and dealerships have worked well for the overseas automakers, who have posted steady gains in their U.S. market share during the past few years.

Besides sharing suppliers, many dealers sell both U.S. and overseas brands. So the failure of a U.S. automaker could hurt the overseas manufacturers' dealer network and their sales as well, Merkle said.

"There would be a severe disturbance in the force," he quipped.
Economic shockwaves

A collapse of one of the Big Three would also probably cause an even more severe hit to the U.S. economy. That would further eat into demand for U.S. auto sales, which hit a 26-year low in November.

"The U.S. economy would be in shambles," Merkle said. "The robust U.S. economy that Toyota and the others depend on would suddenly not be as lucrative."

The overseas automakers agree that the last thing they need is for the U.S. economy to slow further. The U.S. is the largest market for Toyota, Honda and Nissan (NSANY). All are expected to report lower U.S. sales this year for the first time ever.

"We want to get the economy back," said Michael Stanton, CEO of the Association of International Automobile Manufacturers, which represents most of the Asian automakers with plants in the U.S. "Everyone is hurting at this level of sales. Everybody is either cutting back or shutting down."

The latest cutbacks came Monday when Toyota announced it was putting plans to open a new plant in Mississippi on hold indefinitely, even though it is about 90% complete. The plant was set to start building the first domestically produced Prius in 2011.

While the overseas automakers would be certain to eventually pick up more U.S. market share if a U.S. automaker stopped doing business, Merkle said the need to sell off the inventory of the failed automaker at fire sale prices would depress all prices in the industry in the short-term.
Enter new competition

The final concern for the overseas automakers is a longer-term problem. If a U.S. automaker fails, that could open the door for a Chinese or Indian automaker to buy up the assets of the failed automaker and create a new low-cost competitor in the U.S.

"You could open the door for foreign companies to buy distressed assets at rock bottom prices," he said. He pointed to India's Tata (TTM) and China's Geely, as two automakers in the developing world that are already on record as being interested in expanding into western markets like the United States.

"Tata and Geely would be incredibly open to brownfield sites," he said, referring to the term used to describe companies that buy discarded industrial facilities.

Toyota and Honda have already felt the effects of competition from other upstarts firsthand in the U.S.

Korean manufacturers Hyundai and Kia have eaten into the sales of Toyota's and Honda's small, inexpensive vehicles, but that growth has taken decades.

Merkle said it might take a year or more for a new competitor to get off the ground. But by grabbing U.S. automakers' assets, vehicle designs and dealerships, an incoming Indian or Chinese manufacturer could quickly become a low-cost threat much quicker than the Koreans.

The established automakers like Toyota and Honda are also unlikely to look to buy the distressed assets themselves because they have never used acquisitions or purchases of other companies' assets as a method of growing.

Instead, they have always built their own facilities from the ground up in order to expand. Merkle said that is unlikely to change, even if the more productive facilities of U.S. automakers were put up for sale by a bankruptcy court, Merkle said.

While companies such as Tata or Geely are likely to eventually enter the U.S. anyway, Merkle said the vacuum caused by the failure of GM or Chrysler could jumpstart those efforts and bring them to the market years earlier than expected.
Source : CNNMoney.com

The Contribution Revolution: Letting Volunteers Build Your Business

2008-12-07T23:23:00.000-08:00

Many internet superstars owe much of their success to the active and passive contributions made by countless people from outside their organizations. Think, most obviously, of Facebook profiles, eBay goods, YouTube videos, Wikipedia entries, and, less obviously, of the aggregated buying behavior underlying Amazon recommendations and the donated use of personal-computer resources underpinning Skype’s internet-based phone network.
Facebook is a social networking website launched on February 4, 2004. The free-access website is privately owned and operated by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. The website's name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community that some US colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook while he was a student at Harvard University. Website membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Ivy League. It later expanded further to include any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. The website currently has more than 120 million active users worldwide.
eBay Inc. is an American Internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. In addition to its original U.S. website, eBay has established localized websites in thirty other countries. eBay Inc. also owns PayPal, Skype,StubHub, Kijiji,and other businesses.The online auction website was founded in San Jose, California, on September 3, 1995, by French-born Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar as AuctionWeb,part of a larger personal site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola virus.In 1997, the company received approximately $5 million in funding from the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital.
YouTube, LLC is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. YouTube was created in February 2005 by three former PayPal employees.In November 2006, YouTube was bought by Google Inc. for 1.65 billion dollars, and is now operated as a subsidiary of Google. The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by members of the public, although media organizations including CBS and the BBC offer some of their material via the site.YouTube was founded by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim, who were all early employees of PayPal.Hurley studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while Chen and Karim studied computer science together at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Amazon.com, Inc.is an American electronic commerce (e-commerce) company in Seattle, Washington. It is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the internet sales revenue of runner up Staples, Inc.Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994, and launched it online in 1995. Amazon.com started as an on-line bookstore, but soon diversified to product lines of VHS, DVD, music CDs, MP3 format, computer software, video games, electronics, apparel, furniture, food, toys, etc. Amazon has established separate websites in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, China and Japan. It also provides global shipping to certain countries for some of its products (Wikipedia).
Cook, the founder of Intuit (maker of financial software products such as Quicken and TurboTax), challenges traditional companies to tap this emerging source of value by actively creating what he calls user contribution systems.
The user can be a customer, employee, sales prospect—or someone with no previous connection to the company at all. The contribution can be actively offered work, expertise, or information, as well as passive or even unknowing contributions, such as behavioral data that are gathered automatically as a by-product of a transaction or an activity. The system is the method, usually internet based, by which contributions are aggregated and made useful to others. Such a system creates value for a business as a consequence of the value it delivers to customers.
In this article, Cook describes the personal journey that led him to see the tremendous value in user contributions. He creates a taxonomy of the systems that can capture user contributions and shows the variety of ways in which companies from Honda to Procter & Gamble to Hyatt Hotels are leveraging them. And, drawing on his successes and failures in trying to put them to work at Intuit, he offers advice on how business leaders can catalyze action to create user contribution systems in their own organizations.

Source : Harvard Business Review

Development of a Strategy

2008-12-07T05:53:00.000-08:00

In Webter's New World Dictionary, the definition of the strategy is the science of planning, and the determination of the direction of military operations, large scale. Strategy is how to propel the team to the most advantageous position before the actual battle with the enemy. Multidevisional big business, usually have a three-level strategy, namely the corporate strategy, business strategy and functional strategy. Corporate strategy describes the overall direction of the company about the company's general attitude towards the growth and management of various business and product lines to achieve a balance portfolio of products and services.
Corporate strategy consists of a single business corporate strategy, and a multi-business corporate strategy. A single corporate business strategy is a corporate strategy, a growth-oriented and industry that will be the place to compete. Meanwhile, a multi-business corporate strategy not only in growth-oriented and industry, that will be the place to compete, but also the management of its business units to achieve synergy.
Business strategy, or competitive strategy, usually developed in the level of division and the emphasis on the improvement of the position of competing products or services companies in specific industries or market segments served by the division. Although many kinds of strategies that are available. Michael Porter has been summarizing strategy into three general types that provide a good beginning for strategic thinking: overall cost leadership, differentiation, and focus.
According to Hamel and Prahalad in his book Competing for the Future, the future competition is a competition will come to dominate and create the opportunities that arise. Creating the future is more than just capture the opportunities that we have set previously. Our objective is not only imitate the products, processes and methods of our competitors, but how to create opportunities for the future and take advantage of these opportunities.
W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne said that the Red Ocean Strategy is no longer effective to create growth and profits in the future. They are proposing a new strategy called the Blue Ocean Strategy. Blue Ocean Strategy, considers that compete is to create market space that is not their. The market is very widely as "blue ocean".
While the strategy is on the third level of functional strategies. The strategy emphasizes the functional, especially in the optimization of resources productivity, for example, marketing strategy, financial strategy, human resource strategy, operating strategy and the strategy of research and development.

Company Objectives

2008-11-30T20:18:00.000-08:00

After to do the analysis of the company power, strenghts, weaknesses, opportunities and threats also known as among the SWOT Analysis Components, to formulate a company objectives. The Company objectives explain the goals of the specific amount and time.
Objectives usually consist of long-term and short-term or annual objective. The long-term objectives are statements of the result a company seeks to achieve over a specified period. The long-term objective of time frame, usually 5 to 10 years. Thus, the long-term objectives facilitate the planning, implementation and control. Strategic planners establish long-term objectives in seven areas : profitability, competitive position, productivity, technological leadership, employee development, employees realtions and public responsibility (Pearce and Robinson, 2007).
Quality of long-term objectives are seven criteria : acceptable, flexible, measurable, over time, motivating, suitable, understanable and achievable.

Think Like a CEO - Sell to Any Company in Any Industry...Better and Faster than a Harvard MBA by Mark Kuta

2008-11-18T20:48:00.000-08:00

Think Like a CEO outlines a Business Strategy focused on driving top line revenue. Everyone in the business who touches, or sells needs to think like the CEO of the business they are calling on. The tools and templates of the Wall Street Selling Methodology TM are unique and unlike any other sales method. This is not a book filled with fluff or feel goods that promise results. It is not a repackaging of personality definitions, and it doesn t walk you through ten or fifteen or twenty yes/no questions to tell you that your deal is qualified. This methodology will transform the way you approach your sales tasks, and allow you to compete and excel in this environment. Here are just a few sample questions that will take you less than 2 minutes to discover before you make that next call. 1. How is your prospect performing relative to its competitors? 2. How is your prospects productivity relative to its competitors? 3. What are the industry issues your prospect is dealing with? 4. What is your prospects Cash2Cash Cycle and how will you impact it? 5. What are the Profit Strategies you prospect is pursuing, and how do you align to them? These are just several examples of how you will be differentiating yourself from your competition, and be developing a message that will resonate with your C-Level client, as well as throughout his organization.
How many times have you heard that to sell to the CEO you have to become a trusted advisor? Think Like a CEO gives you the roadmap to become that trusted advisor. --Justin Doster, Business Development Executive, IBM

Imagine that, a sales book which actually addresses our issues and challenges us to change our sales behavior! I am completely impressed! I will bet I have read as many sales books as anyone. Further, I wasted at least $50 bucks on my last two which I threw away. NAME DELETED and NAME DELETED. Loved the title, hated the book. What turns me off on so many sales books is the focus on technique and trick bag. This is substance! This should be a text book for any student of professional sales. --Rich McGhee, VP Sales, Servigistics

The book helps businesspeople get inside the head of their C-level prospects by becoming fluent in the language of business, including learning how to read and understand a balance sheet; that they position their sales appeals towards their prospects profit strategies; and that they develop a compelling case as to how their products or services will impact those strategies. Thinking like a CEO requires that we look at things from the perspective of our customers, prospects and clients and align with their needs. It s an attitude that employees at every level can adopt. We may not all be CEO s but all of us can think like one using this book. So whether you are manufacturing bowling balls or selling to a pro sports team, read this book and Think Like a CEO. --Rocky Mountain News
Mark Kuta has sold over $88 million in technology solutions to C-Level executives. A significant number of these sales were at greater than list price an unheard of feat in the software industry. Mark has closed deals in a variety of different industries, as demonstrated by his client list which includes General Motors, TRW, General Electric, Honeywell, NACCO, Juniper Networks, Delphi, Steelcase, Ingersoll Rand, Emerson Electric, Harris Industries, Grupo Industrial de Saltillo, Cisco Systems, Qualcomm, Agilent and Vitro, SA. Since formalizing the Wall Street Selling Methodology TM in the Award Winning book Think Like a CEO, he has become a highly sought-after speaker for national conferences, as well as an advisor to senior executives from companies throughout the world. Mark holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Arizona. He is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and has served on numerous boards. Always looking for adventure, he has scaled Colorado 14ers, hiked the Grand Canyon, backpacked around the world, and raised children. When he s not helping companies increase their top line sales and profitability, Mark is spending time with his wife of 18 years, their two children and German Shepherd Dog. You might also find Mark snowboarding, competing in triathlons, and playing the electric guitar. Learn more Think Like a CEO - Sell to Any Company in Any Industry...Better and Faster than a Harvard MBA (2008 Axiom GOLD Medal Winner - Sales) (2008 Independent Publisher Award GOLD Medal Winner - Business)

Industry Environment

2008-11-06T20:33:00.000-08:00

In any industry, whether in the industrial countries or international, whether produced goods or services, competition rules included in the competition five factors, namely the influx of new immigrants, the threat of product substitution, the bargaining power of buyers, the bargaining power of suppliers and competition among the competitors there (Porter, 1985).
Entry includes obstacle-economic scale, product differentiation, brand identity, switching costs suppliers, capital needs, access to distribution networks, absolute cost advantages, government policies and resistance from the company. The power supplier differentiation is determined by the entries, the cost to switch suppliers from suppliers and companies in the industry, the input substitution, the concentration of suppliers, the importance of the volume of sales for suppliers, the cost relative to the total purchase in the industry, the impact of input cost or differentiation and integration threat to the future relative against the threat of integration to the back by the company in the industry. Determinants of the threat of product substitution of price and performance product substitution, the cost to switch suppliers and buyers to the trend of substitute products. Determinants of the strength of buyers includes purchaser concentration compared with the concentration of the company, the volume of purchase, the cost to switch suppliers from the buyers relative to the cost to switch suppliers from the company, information, buyers, and the ability to perform reverse integration, product substitution, the purchase price, product differentiation, brand identity, the impact of quality, the profit incentive buyers and decision makers. While the determinants of competition among companies that there is a growth industry, fixed costs, excess capacity, product differentiation, brand identity, switching costs suppliers, concentration and balance, motley competitors, betting corporation and exit barriers.
If the five factors determine the strength and they merely a function only of the characteristics instrinsik industry, competitive strategy will be dependent on the selection of appropriate indistri and understanding of the fifth factor is better than its competitors. Thus, the benefits can not compete understood if we do not see a company as a whole. Excellence comes from a competitive range of activities undertaken in the company to design, create, distribute, promote and market the products. In each of these activities can affect the relative cost position of the company and create the basis for differentiation. Strategy costs and benefits of differentiation strategies seek competitive advantages in a wide variety of industries, while pursuing strategies focus on the benefits of cost (the cost of focus) or differentiation (focus on differentiation) in a narrow segment.

The Operational Environment

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The company must make changes to adjust to the competitive environment. Changes related to the subject to create something with the other. The company's operational environment includes competitors, the credit, customers, suppliers and employees.
To identify the competitors, companies can use the matrix profile competition (Competitive Profile Matrix / CPM). In the matrix using the critical success factors that consist of advertising, product quality, price competitiveness, management, financial position, customer loyalty, global expansion and market share.
Analysis of the most important in the operational environment is to understand the customers of company. Customers can be grouped into consumer and industry. Customer profile consumer information can be arranged according to geographical, demographic, psikografis, behavior and benefits. While the information industry includes variable operational approach to purchasing, situasional factors and personal characteristics. Customer profile Internet can be categorized based on community interest, community relations, community transaction, the fantasy community and community professionals.
The company must maintain good relationships with suppliers to maintain the sustainability and growth of the company in the long term. Suppliers can provide support in form of raw materials, equipment, services, and even financial support. Often suppliers can also help with reasonable prices, improved quality, timely delivery of the goods and reduce the cost of supplies, so that they can increase profits in the long term for the company.
In addition to suppliers, the credit is an important partner in the company, because it can provide evaluation of the company's operational environment. Besides the credit can also support the company in the field of financial or other resources to maintain and mengimplentasikan strategy to compete with the company.
Officers or employees or human resource assets, the company's most important. Former CEO of Unilever, Floris A. Maljers says "the biggest obstacle faced by the company in the face of globalization is the limited human resources, not limited capital." Most companies die, because subordinates should always follow their leaders that never changed. Historian, Alfred D. Chandler, Jr., in a book titled Strategy and the progress of the company's structure-American company, because it would make changes, especially in the management system. Chandler examines the four major American companies, namely General Electric, Du-Pont, Standard Oil company and Exxon. Availability changed from the fourth CEO of the company that makes the company has up to now still survive.
Employees are rice, while the style of management is a side dish. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric when it says "We are the things to pawn our people, then we need to empower them, give them resources and out of trouble with how to use them." Jack Welch invest half time with employees, so he knows them, talk with them about the problems the company, if they praised the good performance, but berate them if their performance down. He knows about 1000 employees who have good ideas and have responsibility over their work. Personal approach that made Jack Welch to the employees who produce extraordinary results in increased performance. "If you win, we all win" Thus said Welch. That 27,000 employees of General Electric have shares. In 2001 to 2007, General Electric was selected as "The Most Admired Company in the World" ranked first version of Fortune.

The Canvas Strategy Analysis

2008-10-22T15:27:00.001-07:00

Canvas strategy is the framework for action once the diagnosis strategy to build the two functions (Kim and Mauborgne, 2005). First, he summarizes the latest situation in the market space that is known. This allows companies to understand where the competition is currently underway, to understand the factors that are made in the arena of competition, products, services and understand what consumers are obtained from competitive bidding in the market. In the case of airline industry are eight key factors, the price of plane tickets, food, leisure space, seating class choices, connectivity Hub, friendly service, speed and departure from city-to-city that it's correct. Southwest Airlines created a blue ocean with a recent dilemma that the exchange must be made between consumers and aspects of the flight speed and flexibility of cost-efficient transportation car. To create a blue ocean Southwest Airlines offers high-speed transport with the flexibility regarding the frequency of flights and that many with attractive price for buyers. By reducing certain factors in the competition and improve other factors in the traditional airline industry, and do not forget the factors that create new industries based on alternative transportation car. Southwest Airlines is able to offer a value that has not been there before for users of air services and achieving value with a leap business model with low cost. The curve of the value of Southwest Airlines are uniquely different from the curve value of the competitors in the Canvas strategy.
These factors are considered important element in a campaign the company in a very tight competition. Thus the basic structure of the company based on market perception. On the vertical axis of Canvas strategy, which summarizes the level of consumer demand which is found in all competitions was the main factor. Score high marks a company bidding to provide more to consumers, while signaling that the company spent more investment in these factors. In the case of price, a higher score indicates a higher price. We can now offer sophisticated mapping the company on these factors to understand the profile companies or strategic value curve. Value curve, the basic components of the strategy canvas, is a graphical representation of the relative performance of the company regarding the factors of competition in the industry. To be able to launch the company to track the growth of a strong and profitable in the midst of the industry, not many useful when making comparisons with competitors and try to overcome them by bidding more or less. Such a strategy could increase consumer interest in, but will not encourage companies to open space that there is no market competitors. Conducting in-depth consumer research also not useful to create a blue ocean. Kim and Mauborgne research found that consumers rarely can imagine how to create a market space that are not competitors. Insight they also tend to lead to the old expression "Offer me more with a cheaper price." And, that consumers want to get more "many" are features of products and services offered on this industry. To fundamentally change the canvas of a strategy industry, companies must start by directing the focus back to the strategy of competitors alternative, and not from consumer to consumer industry. To pursue high value once a low cost, companies must be against the old logic: collate competitors in the field and choose the differentiation between the leadership or the costs. When the company's strategy to shift the focus from competition to the current direction of alternative and non-consumers, the company will be understanding how medapatkan The problem faced by the industry and, therefore, to reconstruct the elements of value that buyers are along the boundaries of the industry. Conversely, the conventional logic strategy demanded the company offers a better solution than that offered competitors the company for the problems that have been defined by the industry where companies are.

Resource based-view analysis

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Analysis perspective is a resource-based method to analyze and identify the strategic benefits of the company based on the observation that different combinations of assets, skills, abilities, both tangible and intangible. Thus, the analysis perspective based resource consists of tangible assets, intangible assets, ability and organization. The concept of perspective-based resources raised by the R. M. Grant in the book Contemporary Strategy Analysis, published 2001.
Tangible assets are assets that are easily recognizable, often found on the company's balance sheet report. These assets include production facilities, raw materials, financial resources, computer and office buildings. Tangible assets are used to give the company a value to customers. Toyota Toyota with Prduction System or Just In Time Production. Coca-Cola with a formula Coke. Motorola and General Electric with Six Sigma methods of production.
No tangible assets are assets that can not be touched or seen, but often is very important to create competitive advantages, such as the name brand, the company's reputation, moral organization, technical knowledge, trademarks and patents, and the experience accumulated in the organisasi.General Elecric with a reputation as a company admired the world ranking the first 2007, version of Fortune magazine. IBM with the management team. Wal-Mart with the project. Walt Disney with the spirit of human resources.
The ability of the organization is a trade organization that is used to transform inputs into outputs. Dell Computer has the ability in the areas of customer service. P & G with the management training program. Wal-Mart through the purchase and logistics to it. 3M has the capability in the process of innovation. Apple prominent in the process of product development. Coke famous coordination with global distribution.

The Value Chain Analysis

2008-10-22T15:24:00.000-07:00

Michael E. Porter to analyze the company's internally developed analysis tool called the analysis of the value chain (value chain). This approach is how to look systematically company to serve customers.
Value chain group of companies in activities that are strategically important to understand the behavior and cost the company a potential source of differentiation for the company. Companies have to compete with the benefits of conducting activities in the strategic importance of this with lower cost more or better than competitors called internal factors-key.
Basic categories are grouped into two general groups, namely the main activities and support activities. The main activities include the creation of physical, marketing, delivery and after sales support for products or services company. The main activities consist of five categories, namely logistics in the operation, logistics out, and sales and marketing services. Meanwhile, the activities include the provision of supporting infrastructure that allows input or activities take place continuously. Activities include supporting public administration, human resource management, research-and technology-development and purchase of the system.
Logistics in the activities associated with the assets and the cost to obtain fuel, energy, raw materials, components, goods and consumption goods from suppliers. Logistics is also in activities related to the receipt, storage and dissemination of entries from the supplier and activities insperksi management and warehousing.
Production activities are activities that are associated with the assets and the cost for the change in the form of input to the final product, such as production, assembly, packaging, maintenance of equipment, facilities, operations, quality guarantee and protection of the environment.
Logistics is the outside activities related assets and costs associated with the physical distribution of products to buyers, for example, finished goods storage, processing orders, the selection and packing orders, the transport of goods and operating a vehicle for delivering the goods.
Marketing and sales activity is associated with the assets and costs associated with advertising and promotion, business wiraniaga, planning and market research and support of dealers or distributors to support.
Services are the activities associated with the assets and related costs of providing assistance to buyers, such as installation, spare parts, maintenance and repair, technical assistance, and the desire komplai buyers.
General administration activities are related to assets and costs related general management, accounting and finance, law and regulations, safety and security systems, information management and other functions related to the cost.
Management of human resources is an activity related assets and costs related human resources planning, recruitment, selection, training, development, performance evaluation, compensation, maintenance employees, including employee relations activities.
Research, development and technology system is an activity related assets and costs associated with research and product development, research and development process, improvement of the design process, design, equipment, development of computer software, telecommunications systems, design and reayasa based computer, the ability of the database The new decision support system and the terkomputerisasi.
Purchase activity is associated with the assets and related costs of purchase and supply of raw materials, supplies, services and resources from other needs to support the company and activities. Some of this activity is run as part of the purchase of logistics activities to the company.

Management and Organization Analysis

2008-10-22T15:23:00.000-07:00

Strengths and weaknesses of organization and management structure can be obtained from the organization, image and performance of the company, notes the company in achieving the targets, communication in the organization, the organization's overall control system, climate and cultural organizations, the effective use of the system in decision-making systems, strategic planning, synergy in the organization, information systems and good management of good quality. Ogilvy shows the performance of the Cannes festival in 2002 in one of the content of the website. Companies whose ads are handled by Ogilvy won the award, among others, IBM, Motorola, The Economist and The Samaritans. IBM won the award for the category of "Direct" and the title of the campaign "Screwed Up." Motorola won the award for the category of "Direct" and the title of the campaign "Smarter Living". The Economist won the award for the category "Press" and the title of the campaign "Always Has the Last Word." Meanwhile, the Smaritans won the award for the category of "Film" and the title of the campaign "Foot and mouth."

Operations Analysis

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Production facilities include the analysis of companies, economies of scale, production capacity, production capability on time, expertise in production, the cost and availability of raw material suppliers, location, layout, optimization of facilities, inventories, research and development, patents, trademarks, legal protection, control and operation efficiency and cost-benefit equipment.
General Electric has committed Integrity, Governance, Social Performance, Environtment, Health and Safety, Quality and Innovation to use the benefits of operating in the content of the website. We are a company that Integrity, a company that standard, which have the reputation of the honorable conduct business and reliable. Changes in corporate governance designed to put pressure on the errors of management and directors to serve the interest of long-term owners, employees and stakeholders. Business operations are managed for the long term, with a commitment to social performance is turned on and improved every day. Maintain employees on safe work, good neighbors to communities where we do business with the use regulations, environmental law, resolve the issue of contamination is historical and comprehensive cooperative. Success with Six Sigma exceed the most optimistic predictions, the focus on customers, the philosophy is controlled by the data and implementation of the things that we do. Infinitude company in the future is shown by a series of innovations, products and services with advanced techniques developed by the business, after interviews with extensive customers to adjust the standard of Six Sigma quality and performance, without exception.

Financial Analysis

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Financial Analysis can be seen from the assets, the availability of capital, cash flow, financial stability, relationship with the owners and investors, and the ability to deal with the bank, the amount of capital that is planted, the benefits obtained (the value of shares), the effectiveness and efficiency of accounting system for planning the cost-budget and the level of benefits and resources companies.
General Electric has the financial strength of the firm. General Electric is one of six companies from the United States has a rating of "AAA". General Electric has global assets of more than $ 54 billion and have a surplus of $ 3 billion. General Electric invested $ 14 billion in the intellectual foundation. Investment includes more than $ 5 billion in products, services and information technology, approaching $ 4 billion for marketing, $ 4 billion for placement in the media and the $ 1 billion for training and development Executive. General Electric in 2005 has 2,561 patents.
Berkshire Hathaway Group also show the financial strength of the content of the website. At the site content Berkshire Hathaway Group is in the field of financial gain value "AAA" (Extremely Strong - Insurer Financial Strength rating) by Standard & Poor's and scored "A + +" (Superior) from AM Best.

Human Resource Analysis

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Analysis of human resources can be shown from the management of human resources, the reputation of top management, employee morale and skills, ability and attention of top management, employee productivity, the quality of life of employees, employee flexibility, employee adherence to the rules, the effectiveness of the rewards to motivate employees, and employees.
Wal-Mart is a company ranked the 10 most admired world in 2006 by Fortune magazine version of the reputation of their leaders are difficult disaingi. Its leader is the legendary Sam Walton, the leader of the humble, close to the clerk and employees often with employees who are unload the goods in trucks. Sam Waltom believe that everyone has something to teach him. He will invite talk with people who had never talked before, ask basic questions and listen to the full success of their patience. Most of the time, to record what is important and will be used day. This approach was made when meeting with employees and customers. Sam Walton with 10 famous Rules related to the business and that has proved effective in applied in the Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart brings success.
Similarly, the substitute, namely H. Scott Lee, who was appointed as President and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.. since January 2000, he was selected as the top executive number 1 version of The Hoover's Leadership 100. Under his leadership Wal-Mart continue to grow and improve business forms, including Wal-Mart Discount Stores, Supercenters, Neigborhood Markets, SAM'S CLUB and Walmart.com. In membenahi operational, Lee develop people in the organization by encouraging collaboration between the line ministries, which makes Wal-Mart to become better in building a management team as a can, and identify and implement new ways to repair customer service.
FedEx is a company ranked fourth most admired world's version of Fortune magazine, 2006. The company is known by courier who have skills that fascinate and high speed in the delivery of packages under.
Singapore Airlines is the company most admired world ranking of 20 version of Fortune magazine in 2006. More than 20 awards obtained in 2006. Singapore Airlines to use the Singapore Girl as a symbol of customer service and maintenance of quality. Customers, investors, partners - everyone expects from the special Singapore Airlines. Singapore Girl from recruitment to the dynamic and brilliant and train them with a budget $ 125 million per year in order to obtain professional standards and competence of the highest personal.

Marketing Analysis

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Marketing Analysis can be seen from the company's reputation, market, product quality, product diversity, brand product, product packaging, product models, the size of the product, product warranty, service quality, pricing effectiveness, effectiveness of distribution, promotion effectiveness, the strength of sales, the effectiveness of innovation and geographic coverage.
By using the General Electric Six Sigma has a reputation in the field of quality products, particularly products turbine aircraft, military ships and even buildings. There is no room for error for a General Electric.
Procter & Gamble is very prominent in product quality. Sack of 1995, more than 50 products awarded Beauty Awards. Some of the products from Procter & Gamble Beauty Awards, which have, among others, Pantene Pro-V Relaxed & Natural Shampoo and Pantene Pro-V Relaxed & Natural Conditioner won the Reader's Choice Awards in April 2004. Pantene Pro-V Frizz Control Straigtener Crème win Transpotter Beauty Awards in March 2004. Meanwhile, Pantene Pro-V Classic Clean Shampoo won the Best Inexpensive Overall Shampoo and Pantene Pro-V Classic Clean Conditioner Inexpensive won the Best Overall Conditioaer Awards in April 2004.
BMW is able to maintain a strong brand leadership several decades. The BMW brand, which represents the brand that dynamic, aesthetic, exclusive and innovative become the center of success.
Johnson & Johnson with Band Aid products using packaging that helped to attract the brand overall.
Mercedes C-Class design show that the extra detail the innovative and sporty in a multimedia web site content. With fog lights integrated with the air front, a little different so that the future looks more sporty.
Nestle is the first ranked the most admired based on their ability to enter the global market. Nestle has factories, in almost all countries.

Profit Impact of Market Strategy

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To design the strength and weaknesses are usually selected from the advantages and disadvantages of a company that is very prominent. Analysis includes analysis of the internal environment PIMS (Profit Impact of Market Strategy), functional analysis, analysis and value chain analysis of the value curve.
Analysis PIMS analysis is to identify the factors that affect srategis primary, 80% profitability. Size is used Return On Investment (ROI). Companies with a high ROI have characteristics:
• more low-intensity
• Market share higher
• Quality of products is relatively high
• high capacity utilization
• Effectiveness operating high
• Cost per unit is relatively low against the competition
The researchers PIMS stated that the most important factors that affect business unit performance relative to competitors is the quality of products or services.

Company Social Responsibility

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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is the concept of balance in the company's benefit with social and environmental aspects. "The modern company is a company that should transform themselves into social institutions" said Berle and Means in his book The Modern Corporation and Private Property. Rachel Carson in a book entitled Silent Spring stated that pesticides can turn off the life and the environment, companies must be aware of the environment, because the damage to the environment will bring together disintegration. Books Beyond the Bottom Line, writing Courtney C. Brown emphasized the social responsibility for the company in addition to the profit and consider the environment.
In 2004, the company off as No. 1 for CSR is Fannie Mae. These companies buy mortgages from local borrowers and make the package as securities for sale. In 2003, more than $ 240 billion of home mortgages funded, which is 1.6 million minority people to purchase homes that first time. Priority is increased 60% annually. Even $ 10 million from Fannie Mae, in cooperation with the Islamic financial institutions to open housing in Southern California for the Muslim nation. The payment system using the sharia system.
Procter & Gamble is a company that occupy No. 2. This company is considered to provide special services to people of minority, women and the community. This company is helping young people who are not lucky in Vietnam, combat children who lack nutrition in India and provide help in the earthquake in Turkey. Companies that will survive in the long term is a company such as Fannie mae and Procter & Gamble, who care to the poor or people in difficulty and friendly to the environment. In companies that are not sensitive to people who do not prosper, even to expel them, deprecate them, hurt them, take their rights, shed their blood and not friendly to the environment and companies that arogan, the company will not be long and will go bankrupt.
In 2006, the company off as No. 1 for CSR is Tesco. This company supports charities and social practice devoted to the show's commitment to the communities where the local Tesco store is located. Tesco focuses on the activities of these three areas, namely education and children, old people, and people with disabilities. By involving the community and pay homage charity and social impact is positive to employee morale and help to develop the Tesco store with the relationship between the community around. Every year, to give 1% of the profit before tax for charity and social devotion in the form of donations, gifts and other activities. The amount of funds that are donated increased from 27.1 million pounds sterling in late 2005 and increased to 41.7 million pounds sterling in 2006.
In 2005, Tesco to help children with disabilities so that they can move more freely, such as Owen Smith. Tesco also sponsor the race school children, followed by 120,000 children across the UK and is a sports event for school children fled the largest in the world. Children take part in a week of education and nutrition programs that are designed to adjust the national curriculum and then grasping shin follow around 10 km.
Walt Disney Corporate Responsibility divide into six areas, namely environment, community, business ethics and standards, transparency in corporate sector, field of international labor standards and the field of security and safety. In the field of environmental Walt Disney to make waste minimization and energy conservation do. Waste minimization is an important component of conservation resources. Waste minimization can be done with recycled materials that are not applicable. Walt Disney has recycled more than 650,000 tons of material.

Fossil fuels, such as coal, oil and natural gas provide most of the energy consumed. Walt Disney seeks to support energy conservation technology, the new, introducing clean energy sources and clean air wherever possible. Traffic lights with solar energy is one of the Walt Disney.
Walt Disney contribute to thousands of local organizations and nonprofit groups around the world to support the program with the mission of Walt Disney and the Disney VoluntEARS created to develop opportunities for employees to give time, expertise and their efforts to create a positive impact on the community from Walt Disney.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) consists of various levels. The first tier, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a tool for public relations, such as the Benetton. The campaign is to associate with Benetton "struggle for good."
The second level, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a form of defensive strategy. Nike's response to criticism about working conditions and the use of the labor of children in parik-manufacturer in Asia are on this level. Then the Nike to respond to this as a good reactive. This is not good departure from the vision of the company.
The third tier, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as the company's vision to do good to people. Merck provides drugs for that need. Coca-Cola to establish health clinics in rural areas throughout China. Similarly, conducted by Tesco. According to Michael Porter and Mark Kramer, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is very important to achieve success in competing.
The fourth tier, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as the company's vision to do good to people with the intention of worship or service to the Lord.
"A Muslim who gave his brother to eat until satisfied and give up drinking lost feeling hungry, do not get anything except be dissociated from Hell and opened fire for seven wide ditch between the two trenches along the journey of five hundred years old and Hell cried:" O God allow I bow down to them as gratitude because You have a nation of Muhammad in which I must obey You. Allah then ordered to put people with shodaqah piece of bread or a handful of Tamar to the Garden. (Dhurotun Nasihin) "

Creating Company Mission

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The company's mission is a manifestation of the vision of the company. Those are the main reference of all the changes that occur in the company. If the company wants is a vision, the mission's a manifestation of the desire of the company. But the decline reflects the vision mission to become the expected changes, which describes the journey from the point of departure as a beginning point toward the achievement of a situation that is expected. To implement the changes required a strategic approach to the systematic, rational and objective and structured. Mission leader is a direction to formulate specific targets and objectives of the company. However, sometimes the mission with a similar vision, as presented by Pearce and Robinson (2005), that mission is what the desired company that is ideal or mission is a message designed to represent the hope that an inclusive of all stakeholders on the performance of the company in the long term.
Nokia one of the company that makes the vision and mission into one unit. Nokia's vision and mission is our customer continues to be our first priority.
Nokia's success in the future depending on the experience of our customers by creating products and solutions that are open and interesting. In a world where every person can deal with Nokia to take a very humane approach to technology. Connecting is about helping people to feel close to what has meaning. "Life Goes Mobile" said Chairman of Nokia, Jorma Ollila
FedEx is the mission of the result of higher financial income to shareholders by providing supply chain, transportation, business services and information related to the high value-added through the company that operates in focus. Meet the needs of customers in conformity with the style of the highest quality for each market segment served. FedEx will strive to develop relations with the quality of their employees, partner and suplaiernya. Safety will be number one in operations. Activities company will be delivering to the highest ethical and professional standards.
Microsoft's mission is to help people reach their potential. That is the reason why Microsof donate software, hardware, funding for programs throughout the world as part of the campaign are Your Potential.
Their first experience with the Internet will open the door for the children, showing them a world of possibilities. Microsoft is committed to maintaining their experience more secure through the ongoing progress in the supervision of parents and global partnership. The Microsoft Partners in Learning Initiative provides software and provide training to more than 150,000 teachers. They were given tools and skills they need to help students reach its potential.

Strategies to create a vision

2008-10-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

According to Peter F. Drucker, the foundation of effective leadership is thinking vision and mission of the organization, study, and set a clear and obvious. Leaders set goals, determine priorities, and set and monitor standards.

Meanwhile, according to Tony Buzan in the book The Power of Spiritual Intelegence, vision is defined as the ability to think or plan the future with the wise and imaginative, using a mental picture of the situation that can and may occur in the future. The company’s vision is the desire of companies that are ideal of carefully formulated, which determine the direction or future circumstances. The researchers see the vision as very important for the leadership, the implementation of the strategy and change (Doz & Prahalad, 1987; Hunt, 1991; Kotter, 1990; Robbins & Duncan, 1988; Sashkin, 1988).

Thus, the vision is the starting point of fact the next day a company. Vision, which is a very powerful ideas that can make the leap into the future beginning with the rally all the resources to realize the vision. Vision has the right lure and cause other people to make a commitment, generate energy and enthusiasm, to create meaning for the life of the company, to create standards that can be used to measure the success of the company, can be used outside people (customers) to measure the benefits for the company, a The main bridge between what is done now with companies that want the company in the future, is a major prerequisite for strategic moment and is the basis for formulating the company’s mission. Intel has a vision of encouraging ongoing innovation boundaries so that people can make life more fervent, more fulfilled and easier to manage. Intel’s strong commitment to drive technology to make future has been the transformation of the world with a leap and bound. Intel is a company that always move in the circumstances, coal, creating an industry that never rest. Intel responses partner to develop innovative products and services, rally to support the industry can provide solutions with better resolution with collectively provide greater benefits and more quickly.

Bill Gates at the beginning of the founding of Microsoft, has the vision of “A computer on every desk in every home, running the Microsoft device.” But after Bill Gates created the MS-DOS, it makes the Windows operating system as well as home use window that caused Bill Gates to become Entrepreneurs richest in the world. It is not true is true that Bill Gates is merely a role in putting the PC in the office and at home in the world, but Bill Gates has the vision to see what is possible and the desire to change the vision into reality.

Thomas Watson Sr.. change the company name Computing Tabulating Recording Company became International Business Machine (IBM), even when not operate internationally, but Thomas Watson has a vision that the company later became the company that operates internationally. When Watson called the International Business Machine (IBM) many people when it laughed Watson. Even if there is a name that Watson is too grown-blown company. But now IBM is a modern company and the its manager become role models by setting the white shirt, plain tie, the spirit of selling out. In 2003 this company was selected as the IBM computer that the world’s most spectacular version of Fortune magazine.

Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon.com, which initially only a bookstore .. Why does he call the company with Amazon. Because “the Amazon river is the largest river in the world” said Jeff Bezos. How the river Nile. River Nile is the longest river in the world, if compared with the volume of the water Amazon River is the only child the Amazon river. Amazon river contains 20% water world, then Jeff Bezos has on the company soon became the company which controlled 20% of the world market. Amazon.com to open the site E-Commernya in July 1995, the beginning of the book store and then spread to the compact disk (CD) and then to auction, and now thousands of different products and different traders. In 1996, to sell 15.7 million dollars and jumped into 600 million dollars in 1998. Amazon.com reported on November 1, through December 23, 2002, consumers who do order in the world 56 million items to become the best online stores 2002 version of Yahoo magazine.

John F. Welch, Jr. (former CEO) of General Electric stated: “We use the three principles set the atmosphere for the operation and behavior at General Electric: no border in all our behavior, speed in everything we do and peregangan in each of the targets that we set” . Behavior without border rally twelve global business major, each number one or number two in the market, to a laboratory in the area of the produkutamanya is a new idea, along with the general commitment to disseminate the company’s history. Speed is something that does not usually found in the company of General Electric, General Electric, but in the form found in the speed of product development, design re-recycling (from order to delivery), set back the ability to reduce investment and factory equipment. Peregangan means using dreams to set targets that exceed the set target.

Proses Manajemen Strategis

2008-10-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

Tidak hanya perusahaan besar saja yang mempunyai manajemen strategis, tetapi perusahaan kecilpun sebaiknya dikelola dengan menggunakan manajemen strategis. Manajemen strategis merupakan sekumpulan keputusan dan tindakan yang dirancang untuk mencapai sasaran perusahaan. Dengan demikian manajemen strategis melibatkan pengambilan keputusan berjangka panjang dan rumit serta berorientasi masa depan dengan membutuhkan sumberdaya yang besar dan partisipasi manajemen puncak. Manajemen strategis merupakan proses tiga tingkatan yang melibatkan para perencana di tingkat perusahaan, unit bisnis dan fungsional serta para perencana pendukung lainnya.
Manajemen strategis prosesnya terdiri dari delapan langkah yaitu : mendefinisikan visi, misi bisnis dan tanggungjawab sosial, menganalisis lingkungan eksternal, menganalisis lingkungan inter¬nal, memilih tujuan dan sasaran bisnis, mengembangkan strategis bisnis, merinci rencana program, mengimplementasikan rencana program, dan mengumpulkan umpan balik dan menguji pengendalian.Semua langkah ini menjaga terhambatnya unit usaha terhadap lingkungan dan berjaga-jaga terhadap peluang dan masalah-masalah yang baru.
Perusahaan kecil serupa dengan perusahaan besar, sebaiknya mempunyai visi dan misi perusahaan. Visi adalah tujuan unik dari perusahaan yang membedakan perusahaan tersebut dengan perusahaan lainnya yang sejenis dan mengidentifikasi cakupan operasinya. Visi merupakan pernyataan atau rumusan umum yang luas dan bersifat tahan lama tentang keinginan atau tujuan perusahaan. Visi ini mengandung filosofi bisnis dari pengambil keputusan strategi perusahaan, menyiratkan citra yang dipancarkan perusahaan, mencerminkan konsep diri perusahaan dan mengidentifikasikan bidang produk (barang, jasa, gagasan) utama perusahaan serta kebutuhan utama pelanggan yang dipenuhi perusahaan. Secara ringkas, visi menguraikan produk, pasar, teknologi yang diterapkan perusahaan, dan ini dilakukan sedemikian sehingga mencerminkan nilai dan prioritas dari pengambil keputusan strategik perusahaan. Sedangkan misi merupakan operasionalilasi dari visi.
Intel mempunyai visi mendorong secara terus-menerus batas-batas inovasi agar dapat membuat hidup orang lebih bergairah, lebih terpenuhi dan lebih mudah untuk mengelolanya. Bill Gates pada awal berdirinya Microsoft, mempunyai visi “Sebuah komputer di atas setiap meja kerja di setiap rumah, menjalankan perangkat Microsoft”.
Misi Levi Strauss & Co. adalah “ memelihara keberhasilan komersial yang bertanggungjawab dalam perusahaan pemasaran global pakaian santai bermerk”. Pernyataan misi Motorola, yaitu “Tujuan mendasar kami adalah kepuasan pelanggan total”.
Analisis lingkungan eksternal akan menghasilkan peluang dan ancaman perusahaan. Lingkungan eksternal perusahaan terdiri dari tiga perangkat faktor, yaitu lingkungan jauh, lingkungan industri dan lingkungan operasional.
Lingkungan jauh terdiri dari dari faktor-faktor yang bersumber dari luar, dan biasanya tidak berkaitan dengan situasi operasi perusahaan tertentu, yaitu faktor ekonomi, sosial-budaya, teknologi, demografi, politik-hukum, dan ekologi.
Lingkungan insudtri terdiri dari persaingan diantara anggota industri, hambatan masuk, produk substitusi, daya tawar pembeli dan daya tawar pemasok.
Lingkungan operasional meliputi faktor-faktor yang mempengaruhi situasi persaingan perusahaan, yaitu posisi bersaing, profil pelanggan, pemasok, kreditor, dan pasar tenaga kerja.
Ketiga faktor tesebut memunculkan peluang dan ancaman dalam memasarkan produk secara menguntungkan. Misalnya, Coca-Cola pada tahun 1993 melakukan analisis lingkungan jauh, mendapatkan hasil sebagai berikut:
- semakin meningkatnya pendapatan disposabel, penjualan Coca-
Cola akan meningkat,
- Inflasi mempengaruhi keberhasilan Coca-Cola
- K
- Konsumsi minuman ringan berbanding terbalik dengan usia seseorang,
artinya semakin tua, semakin berkurang minum minuman ringan,
sebaliknya kelompok muda yang paling banyak minum minuman
ringan.
- Teknologi membuat dunia semakin sempit, sehingga muncul nya pasar
“kaum muda” baru yang lebih mudah dijangkau.
Dari lingkungan industri Coca-Cola menghasilkan :
- Coca-Cola mendapat persaingan yang kuat dari Pepsi
- Bahan baku utama Coca-Cola adalah sirup jagung berkadar fruktosa tinggi, sejenis gula, untuk di Amerika Serikat dapat dipasok oleh sebagian besar sumber domistik. Untuk diluar Amerika Serikat dapat diganti sukrosa. Bahan lain adalah aspartam, bahan pemanis yang digunakan dalam produk minuman ringan rendah kalori diperoleh dari The Nutra Sweet Company.
- Pembeli minuman ringan adalah perorangan dan para pembotol yang memperoleh hak waralaba.
- Ada banyak minuman substutusi dari minuman ringan yang populer , antara lain minuman sitrus (citrus beverage), sari buah (fruit juice)
Analisis lingkuangan internal akan menghasilkan kekuatan dan kelemahan perusahaan. Analisis Internal Perusahaan dikenal juga dengan nama Analisis Profil Perusahaan. Analisis ini menggambarkan kekuatan perusahaan, baik kuantitas maupun kualitas pemasaran, sumberdaya manusia, sumberdaya fisik, operasi, keungan, manajemen dan organisasi.
Kekuatan dan kelemahan Pemasaran dapat dilihat dari reputasi perusahaan, pangsa pasar, kualitas produk, kualitas pelayanan, efektifitas penetapan harga, efektifitas distribusi, efektifitas promosi, kekuatan penjualan, efektifitas inovasi dan cakupan geografis.
Kekuatan dan kelemahan sumberdaya manusia dapat ditunjukkan dari manajemen sumberdaya manusia, ketrampilan dan moral karyawan, kemampuan dan perhatian manajemen puncak, produktivitas karyawan, kualitas kehidupan karyawan, fleksibilitas karyawan, ketaatan hokum karyawan, efektivitas imbalan dalam memotivasi karyawan, dan pengalaman karyawan.
Keuangan terdiri dari ketersediaan modal, arus kas, stabilitas keuangan, hubungan dengan pemilik dan investor, kemampuan berhubungan dengan bank, besarnya modal yang ditanam, keuntungan yang diperoleh (nilai saham), efektivitas dan efisiensi system akuntansi untuk perencanaan biaya-anggaran dan keuntungan dan sumber tingkat perusahaan.
Operasi meliputi fasilitas perusahaan, skala ekonomi, kapasitas produksi, kemampuan berproduksi tepat waktu, keahlian dalam berproduksi, biaya bahan baku dan ketersediaan pemasok, lokasi, layout, optimalisasi fasilitas, persediaan, penelitian dan pengembangan, hak paten, merk dagang, proteksi hokum, pengendalian operasi dan efisiensi serta biaya-manfaat peralatan.
Kekuatan dan kelemahan organisasi dan manajemen dapat diperoleh dari struktur organisasi, citra dan prestasi perusahaan, catatan perusahaan dalam mencapai sasaran, komunikasi dalam organisasi, system pengendalian organisasi keseluruhan, budaya dan iklim organisasi, penggunaan system yang efektif dalam pengambilan keputusan, system perencanaan strategic, sinergi dalam organisasi, system informasi yang baik dan manajemen kualitas yang baik.
Setelah perusahaan melakukan analisis kekuatan, kelemahan, peluang dan ancaman yang dikenal juga dengan Analisis SWOT, selanjutnya merumuskan sasaran. Sasaran menjelaskan tujuan-tujuan yang spesifik dalam jumlah dan waktu. Dengan demikian sasaran memudahkan untuk perencanaan, pelaksanaan dan pengendalian. Sasaran perusahaan dapat berupa profitabilitas, posisi pasar, produktivitas, kepemimpinan teknologi, pengembangan sumberdaya manusia, hubungan antar karyawan dan tanggungjawab sosial.
Sedikit sekali perusahaan yang hanya memiliki satu sasaran. Sebagian besar perusahaan memiliki bauran sasaran yang mencakup laba, pertumbuhan penjualan, peningkatan pangsa pasar, pembatasan risiko, inovasi reputasi, dan sebagainya. Perusahaan menentukan sasarannya dan melakukan pengelolaan usaha sesuai sasaran tersebut (Management By Objectives-MBO).
Dilema penting lainnya mencakup antara laba jangka pendek versus pertumbuhan jangka panjang, penetrasi pasar yang ada versus pengembangan pasar baru, sasaran laba versus sasaran nirlaba, pertumbuhan tinggi versus risiko rendah. Setiap pilihan dalam kelompok dilema sasaran ini memerlukan strategi pemasaran yang berbeda.
Sasaran menunjukkan apa yang ingin dicapai suatu perusahaan, strategi adalah suatu rencana permainan untuk mencapainya. Setiap usaha harus merancang strategi untuk mencapai sasarannya. Perusahaan bisnis multidevisional besar, biasanya memiliki tiga level strategi, yaitu strategi korporasi, strategi bisnis dan strategi fungsional.
Strategi korporasi menggambarkan arah perusahaan secara keseluruhan mengenai sikap perusahaan secara umum terhadap pertumbuhan dan manajemen berbagai bisnis dan lini produk untuk mencapai keseimbangan portofolio produk dan jasa.
Strategi bisnis atau strategi bersaing biasanya dikembangkan dalam level devisi dan menekankan pada perbaikan posisi persaingan produk barang atau jasa perusahaan dalam industri khusus atau segmen pasar yang dilayani oleh devisi tersebut. Strategi bisnis ini misalnya strategi generik dari Michael E. Porter, strategi dari Jack Trout, Strategic Intent dari Hamel dan Prahalat dan strategi samudra biru dari Kim dan Mauborgne.
Kondisi badai yang dahsyat bagi perusahaan memaksa perusahaan-perusahan yang dikagumi dunia membuat strategi untuk dapat tetap bertahan dan tumbuh. Strategi adalah ilmu perencanaan dan penentuan arah operasi-operasi militer berskala besar. Strategi adalah bagaimana menggerakkan pasukan ke posisi paling menguntungkan sebelum pertempuran aktual dengan musuh. Strategi bisnis berfokus pada peningkatan posisi bersaing produk dan jasa perusahaan dalam industri atau segmen pasar tertentu yang dilayani perusahaan. Strategi bisnis mengatasi masalah bagaimana perusahaan dan unit-unitnya bersaing dalam bisnis dan industri.
Strategi generik dari Michael E. Porter. Strategi ini terdiri dari strategi keunggulan biaya, strategi deferensiasi dan strategi fokus. Strategi keunggulan biaya secara keseluruhan merupakan strategi yang membuat unit bisnis bekerja keras mencapai biaya produksi dan distribusi terendah, sehingga harganya dapat lebih rendah daripada pesaing dan mendapat pangsa pasar yang besar. Strategi Diferensiasi merupakan strategi unit bisnis yang berkonsentrasi untuk mencapai kinerja terbaik dalam memberikan manfaat bagi pelanggan yang dinilai penting oleh sebagian besar pasar. Sedangkan strategi fokus merupakan strategi unit bisnis yang memfokuskan diri pada satu atau lebih segmen pasar yang sempit dari pada mengejar pasar yang lebih besar.
Strategi dari Jack Trout menyebutkan bahwa inti dari strategi adalah bagaimana bertahan hidup dalam dunia kompetitif, bagaimana membuat persepsi yang baik di benak konsumen, menjadi berbeda, mengenali kekuatan dan kelemahan pesaing, menjadi spesialisas, menguasai satu kata yang sederhana di kepala, kepemimpinan yang memberi arah dan memahami realitas pasar dengan menjadi yang pertama daripada menjadi yang lebih baik.
Hamel dan Prahalat menyatakan bahwa untuk bersaing masa yang akan datang yang dibutuhkan empat hal. Pertama, harus memahami bahwa bagaimana bersaing pada masa yang akan datang adalah berbeda dengan bersaing di masa sekarang. Kedua, melakukan langkah untuk menemukan dan meningkatkan pengetahuan yang mendalam tentang peluang-peluang yang akan datang. Ketiga, melakukan mobilisasi sumberdaya perusahaan untuk menuju perjalanan pada masa yang akan datang. Keempat, mengambil masa yang akan datang yang pertama, tanpa mengambil mengambil risiko yang berlebihan.
Sedangkan strategi samudra biru dari Kim dan Mauborgne atau Blue Ocean Strategy, menganggap bahwa bersaing adalah menciptakan ruang pasar yang tidak ada lawannya. Blue Oceans merupakan seluruh industri yang tidak ada saat ini, tidak dikenal ruang pasarnya dan tidak ada persaingan. Dalam blue oceans permintaan itu diciptakan, bukan diperebutkan dengan persaingan. Permintaan itu dapat tumbuh dengan cepat dan menguntungkan. Untuk menciptakan blue oceans dengan dua cara, yaitu perusahaan dapat meningkatkan industri baru yang lengkap, misalnya eBay menciptakan lelang, tetapi secara online. Cara kedua, blue oceans dapat diciptakan dari dalam red oceans pada saat perusahaan mengubah batas industri yang ada.
Strategi fungsional menekankan terutama pada pemaksimalan sumberdaya produktivitas, misalnya strategi pemasaran, strategi keuangan, strategi sumberdaya manusia, strategi operasi dan strategi penelitian dan pengembangan.
Menurut Porter, perusahaan-perusahaan yang melakukan strategi yang sama dan ditujukan untuk pasar atau segemen sasaran yang sama membentuk kelompok strategis. Perusahaan yang melaksanakan strategis tersebut dengan paling baik akan memperoleh laba paling besar. Jadi perusahaan yang memiliki biaya paling rendah diantara perusahaan-perusahaan yang melaksanakan strategi biaya rendah akan tampil paling baik. Perusahaan yang tidak ,menerapkan strategi yang jelas “pengambil jalan tengah” akan gagal. Sebagai contoh, International Harvester mengalami masa sulit, karena dalam industri ia bukanlah perusahaan dengan biaya terendah, mencapai nilai yang tertinggi, atau terbaik dalam melayani beberapa segmen pasar. Pengambil jalan tengah mencoba untuk tampil baik dalam semua dimensi strategis, tetapi karena berbagai dimensi strategis memerlukan cara pengelolaan perusahaan yang berbeda dan kadang kala tidak konsisten, perusahaan-perusahaan ini akhirnya tidak unggul dalam satu bidangpun.
Perusahaan-perusahaan juga menemukan bahwa strategi yang paling efektif mengharuskan mereka memiliki mitra strategis. Bahkan perusahaan-perusahaan raksasa AT&T, IBM, Philips, Siemens sering tidak dapat menjadi pemimpin, baik, secara Nasional maupun global, tanpa membentuk aliansi strategis dengan perusahaan domestik dan / atau multinasional yang melengkapi atau meningkatkan kemampuan dan sumber daya mereka. Untuk berusaha dalam negara lain, perusahaan mungkin perlu mendapatkan lisensi produknya, membentuk kerja sama dengan perusahaan lokal, membeli dari pemasok lokal untuk memenuhi persyaratan “kandungan lokal” dan sebagainya. Sebagai akibatnya, semakin banyak perusahaan yang mengembangkan jaringan kerja strategis global. Untuk lebih rinci, lihat uraian Visi 2000 pada halaman 76 yang berjudul “Persekutuan Aneh : Mengusahakan Pertumbuhan Global Melalui Aliansi Strategis.”
Banyak aliansi strategis mengambil bentuk aliansi pemasaran yang terbagi dalam empat kategori :
• Aliansi produk dan/atau pelayanan : Satu perusahaan memberikan lisensi pada perusahaan lain untuk memproduksi produknya, atau dua perusahaan bersama-sama memasarkan produk mereka yang saling melengkapi atau suatu produk baru, Sebagai contoh, Apple bekerja sama dengan Digital Vax untuk bersama merancang, memproduksi, dan memasarkan suatu produk baru. Sprinty baru-baru ini bergabung dengan RCA sebagai imbalan mengganti pelayanan telepon mereka kepada Sprint. H&R Blockdan Hyatt Legal Service dua usaha jasa telah bekerja sama dalam sebuah aliansi pemasaran.
• Aliansi promosi : Sebuah perusahaan setuju melakukan promosi untuk produk atau jasa perusahaan lain. Misalnya, Burger King bekerja sama dengan Disney menawarkan benda-benda berkarakter Lion king atau Pocahontas serta produk lain kepada pembeli burgernya. Demikian juga halnya, sebuah bank mungkin bersedia untuk memajang sebuah lukisan dan suatu galeri lokal.
• Aliansi logistik : Di sini, suatu perushaan menawarkan dukungan logistik untuk produk perusahaan lain. Misalnya, Abbott Laboratories menyimpan dan mengirimkan seluruh produk medis dan bedah 3M ke rumah-rumah di seluruh Amerika Serikat.
• Kolaborasi harga : Satu atau lebih perusahaan turut serta dalam kolobarasi harga khusus. Biasanya jaringan hotel dan perusahaan penyewaan mobil saling memberikan potongan harga.
Perusahaan-perusahaan perlu mempunyai pemikiran yang relatif dalam menemukan mitra usaha yang akan melengkapi kekuatan dan menutupi kelemahan mereka. Bila dikelola dengan baik, aliansi memungkinkan perusahaan-perusahaan untuk mencapai penjualan yang lebih tinggi dengan biaya yang lebih rendah.
Setelah unit usaha mengembangkan strategi utamanya, unit usaha tersebut mengembangkan program pendukungnya yang terinci. Jadi kalau unit usaha memutuskan untuk unggul dalam teknologi, unit usaha tersebut harus merencanakan program untuk memperkuat departemen litbangnya, mengumpulkan intelejensi teknologi, mengembangkan produk mutakhir, melatih para staf penjual teknis, membuat iklan untuk mengkomunikasikan keunggulan teknologinya, dan sebagainya.
Setelah program tersebut dirumuskan dengan sementara, staf fungsional harus mengevaluasi biaya dari program tersebut. Pertanyaan-pertanyaan bermunculan seperti : Apakah partisipasi dalam pameran dagang tertentu cukup berarti ? Apakah kontes penjualan tertentu bermanfaat ? Apakah mempekerjakan tenaga penjual tambahan akan memberikan kontribusi terhadap laba ? Activity-based accounting harus diterapkan untuk setiap kegiatan pemasaran untuk menentukan apakah kegiatan tersebut akan memberikan hasil yang cukup menutupi biayanya.
Strategi yang jelas dan pendukung yang matang mungkin tidak akan bermanfaat, jika perusahaan gagal melaksanakannya dengan cermat. Menurut McKinsey Consulting Firm, strategi hanyalah satu dari tujuh unsur yang ditunjukkan oleh perusahaaan yang dikelola dengan baik. Kerangka keberhasilan usaha 7-S dari McKinsey. Tiga unsur pertama strategi (strategy), struktur (structure),dan sistem (systems) dianggap sebagai “perangkat keras” keberhasilan. Empat unsur selanjutnya gaya (style), staf (staff) ketrampilan (skill) dan nilai bersama (shared value) adalah perangkat lunaknya.”
Unsur lunak pertama, gaya, artinya perusahaan memiliki cara berpikir dab bersikap yang sama. Sehingga semua karyawan McDonald tersenyum pada pelanggan dan karyawan IBM sangat profesional dalam berhubungan dengan pelanggan. Yang kedua, staf, artinya perusahaan telah memperkerjakan orang yang cakap, melatih mereka dengan baik, dan menugaskanmereka pada tugas yang sesuai. Yang ketiga, kemampuan, berarti semua karyawan memiliki kemampuan untuk menjalanjkan strategi perusahaan. Yang keempat, nilai bersama, berarti semua karyawan memiliki nilai-nilai panduan yang sama. Kala unsur “lunak” inin ada, perusahaan biasanya lebih berhasil dalam pelaksanaan strategi.
Selama perusahaan melaksanakan strateginya, perusahaan perlu mengamati hasilnya dan memantau perkembangan baru di lingkungan internal dan eksternalnya. Beberapa lingkungan stabil dari tahun ke tahun. Yang lain perlahan-lahan berevolusi dengan cara yang dapat diperkirakan. Tetapi, ada juga lingkungan yang mengalami perubahan besar yang cepat dan tak dapat diramalkan. Perusahaan harus yakin akan satu hal : lingkungan akan berubah. Dan jika perubahan itu terjadi, perusahaan itu terjadi, perusahaan harus meninjau ulang dan merevisi pelaksanaan. Program, strategi, atau bahkan sasarannya.
Pengendalian organisasi terdiri dari tiga jenis, yaitu pengendalian strategis, pengendalian manajemen dan pengendalian operasional. Pengendalian strategis merupakan proses dari evaluasi strategi, yang dilakukan baik strategi tersebut dirumuskan dan setelah diimplementasikan. Pengendalian manajemen berfokus pada pencapaian sasaran dari berbagai substrategi bersesuaian dengan strategi utama dan pencapaian sasaran dari rencana jangka menengah. Sedangkan pengendalian operasional berpusat pada kinerja individu dan kelompok yang dibandingkan dengan peran individu dan kelompok yang telah ditentukan oleh rencana organisasi. Masing-masing jenis pengendalian tersebut tidak terpisah dan tidak berbeda secara nyata serta dalam kenyataan mungkin tidak berbeda satu dengan yang lainnya.
Pengendalian strategi dipusatkan dengan mengikuti jalannya strategi yang dimplementasikan, mendeteksi setiap bidang masalah atau bidang masalah yang potensial dan membuat penyesuaian yang diperlukan. Newman and Logan menggunakan terminologi “pengendalian sistem kemudi” untuk menyoroti beberapa karakteristik penting dari pengendalian strategi. Biasanya, suatu rentang waktu yang penting terjadi antara awal implementasi strategi dengan pencapaian dari hasil yang diharapkannya. Selama waktu itu, sejumlah proyek dilaksanakan, investasi dibuat dan tindakan dilakukan untuk mengimplentasikan strategi baru. Juga situasi lingkungan dan internal perusahaan sedang tumbuh dan berkembang. Pengendalian strategi diperlukan untuk mengendalikan perusahaan melalui peristiwa tersebut. Pengendalian strategi harus menyediakan beberapa koreksi langsung berdasarkan pada kinerja menengah dan informasi baru.
Henry Mintzberg menyatakan bahwa persoalan sebagaimana baiknya organisasi membuat rencana strategi, tetapi strategi yang berbeda mungkin akan muncul. Memulai dengan strategi yang direncanakan atau yang diharapkan berhubungan dengan beberapa hal :
• Strategi yang diharapkan yang dapat direalisasikan yang disebut strategi dengan sengaja (deliberate strategy)
• Strategi yang diharapkan yang tidak dapat direalisasikan yang disebut strategi tak terealisasi (unrealized strategy)
• Strategi yang terealisasi yang tidak pernah diharapkan disebut strategi darurat (emergent strategy)
Robert Anthony dari Harvard Business School menyatakan bahwa perencanaan dan pengendalian dihubungkan antara keduanya secara dekat dalam organisasi sehingga untuk membuat pemisahan antara keduanya tidak diinginkan dan tidak diartikan. Perencanaan harus mendahului pengendalian, pengendalian harus merefleksikan perencanaan. Anthony menyarankan bahwa perencanaan dan pengendalian organisasi disegmantasi ke dalam tiga kategori, yaitu perencanaan strategis, pengendalian manajemen dan pengendalian tugas (operasional). Ia menyatakan bahwa perencanaan strategis berarti perencanaan dan pengendalian strategis, serupa pula dengan pengendalian manajemen adalah melibatkan aktivitas perencanaan dan pengendalian.
Pengendalian strategi menurut Schendel and Hofer berfokus pada dua pertanyaan (1) apakah strategi yang diimplementasikan sebagai yang direncanakan dan (2) apakah hasil yang dibuat oleh strategi merupakan yang diharapkan. Definisi ini merujuk pada kajian tradisional dan langkah umpan balik yang merupakan langkah akhir dari proses manajemen strategis. Model normatif dari proses manajemen strategis yang menggambarkan langkah-langkah utama tersebut mencakup perumusan strategi, implentasi strategi dan evaluasi (pengendalian) strategi.
Pengendalian strategi berpijak terutama pada proses pengendalian tradisional yang melibatkan kajian dan umpan balik kinerja untuk menentukan rencana, strategi dan sasaran yang telah dicapai dengan menghasilkan informasi yang digunakan untuk memecahkan masalah atau mengambil tindakan korektif.
Kontributor konseptual yang baru untuk literatur pengendalian strategis memperlihatkan pengendalian umpan balik antisipasi ke depan yang mempertimbangkan perubahan cepat dan lingkungan eksternal yang tidak pasti. Schreyogg dan Steinmann (1987) telah membuat penemuan awal dalam mengembangkan sistem yang baru beroperasi pada landasan yang berkesinambungan, mengecek dan mengevaluasi asumsi, strategi dan hasil secara kritis. Pengendalian strategis sebagai evaluasi kritis dari rencana, aktivitas dan hasil, dengan demikian menyediakan informasi untuk tindakan masa yang akan datang. Schreyogg dan Steinmann mengusulkan model umpan balik secara klasik untuk pengendalian strategis mencakup pengendalian asumsi, pengendalian implementasi dan pengawasan strategis. Pearce and Robinson menambahkan dengan komponen pengendalian peringatan khusus. Keempat jenis pengendalian ini dirancang untuk memenuhi kebutuhan manajemen puncak untuk mengawasi strategi saat dilaksanakan, untuk mendekteksi masalah-masalah penting, dan untuk melakukan penyesuaian yang diperlukan. Pengendalian strategis ini terkait dengan asumsi lingkungan dan persyaratan operasional kunci yang diperlukan untuk implementasi strategi yang berhasil.
Pengendalian asumsi dirancang untuk mengecek secara sistematis dan berkesinambungan apakah atau asumsi-asumsi yang dipakai selama proses perencanaan dan implementasi masih handal atau tidak. Hal itu melibatkan kondisi lingkungan, yaitu faktor lingkungan (ekonomi, teknologi, sosial-budaya, politik-hukum, demografi, ekologi, peraturan pemerintah dsb.) dan faktor industri (pesaing, suplier, pembeli, barang substitusi dan hambatan masuk). Seluruh asumsi mungkin tidak mengharuskan kesamaan dari sejumlah pengendalian. Oleh karena itu, manajer harus memilih asumsi dan variabel yang sesuai untuk perubahan dan akan berdampak besar pada perusahaan dan strategi yang dilaksanakannya.
Pengendalian implementasi merupakan pengendalian yang mempertanyakan apakah strategi keseluruhan perlu diubah atau tidak dengan melihat hasil implementasi strategi. Pengendalian implementasi strategis tidak menggantikan pengendalian operasional. Pengendalian implementasi strategi berkait dengan strategi fungsional, struktur organisasi, gaya kepemimpinan, sistem imbalan dan sistem informasi. Tidak seperti pengendalian operasional, pengendalian implementasi strategis secara berkesinambungan mempertanyakan arah strategi secara mendasar. Pengendalian implementasi tersebut melibatkan 2 hal, yaitu memantau kepercayaan strategis (program strategis baru atau program strategis kunci) dan mengkaji ulang kejadian penting.
Pengawasan strategis merupakan pengendalian yang memantau peristiwa yang mungkin mempengaruhi jalannya strategi baik di dalam maupun di luar perusahaan. Dibandingkan dengan pengendalian asumsi dan pengendalian implementasi, pengawasan strategis dirancang relatif kurang terfokus, terbuka dan aktivitas pencarian yang lebih luas. Ide dasar dibalik pengawasan strategis adalah beberapa bentuk pemantauan umum terhadap berbagai sumber informasi akan menemukan peluang penting tidak terduga yang sebelumnya tidak diantisipasi. Pengawasan strategis memunculkan cara yang serupa dengan melakukan pengamatan terhadap lingkungan, meskipun pengamatan terhadap lingkungan biasanya dilihat dari bagian dari siklus perencanaan yang secara kronologis dijadikan untuk menghasilkan informasi untuk rencana yang baru. Sebaliknya, pengawasan strategis dirancang untuk menyelamatkan strategi yang telah dibangun atas dasar berkesinambungan.
Pengendalian peringatan khusus adalah pemikiran kembali terhadap strategi perusahaan secara mendalam, dan seringkali cepat akibat adanya kejadian yang tak terduga. Kejadian yang tak terduga tersebut misalnya bencana alam, kecelakaan pesawat, pengambil alihan perusahaan, produk cacat, produk mengandung racun, dan sebagainya. Kejadian tersebut dapat secara dramatis mengubah strategi perusahaan. Pearce dan Robinson menyarankan pengendalian peringatan khusus dibentuk hanya selama implementasi strategi, karena pengendalian peringatan khusus sesungguhnya merupakan sub bagian dari pengawasan strategis yang dipandu seluruhnya dalam proses manajemen strategis.
Meskipun sistem pengendalian harus dibuat sesuai dengan situasi yang khusus, tetapi sistem pengendalian mengikuti proses dasar yang sama, biasanya mengikuti enam langakah sebagai berikut :
• Menentukan apa yang dikendalikan
• Menetapkan standar
• Mengukur kinerja
• Membandingkan kinerja dengan standar
• Menentukan alasan penyimpangan
• Melakukan tindakan koreksi

Apple Computer, Inc.

2008-10-22T14:55:00.000-07:00

The company ranked first admired the world in 2008 version of Fortune magazine, is Apple Computer, Inc.. The company was registered legally in the state of California on 3 January 1977. This company to design, produce and market personal computers and software that berhungan with the computer, services, peripherals and network solutions. Apple is also designing, developing and marketing of portable digital music player with accessories and services include online distribution of music, audio books, music videos, short films and television performances. Products and services include the company's line of Macintosh desktop and notebook computers, the iPod digital music player, the Xserve G5 server and Xserve RAID storage products, software applications for consumer and professional, operating system Mac OS X, iTunes Music Store, to support line Macintosh and iPod products and various services and support provided. On 24 September, 2006, Apple earn around 19.3 billion dollars the United States and has approximately 14,800 employees full-time employees and 2,020 contract.

Jonhson & Johnson.

2008-10-22T14:54:00.000-07:00

The company ranked seventh admired the world in 2008 version of Fortune magazine is Jonhson & Johnson. The company was registered legally in the state of New Jersey in 1887. Johnson & Johnson produces and sells health care products. This company operates in more than 230 countries around the world. Johnson & Johnson business is grouped into three segments: Consumer, Pharmaceutical and Medical Devices and Diagnostics. Consumer segment includes infant and child care, skin care, wound care and oral health care and women. Pharmaceutical segment includes the field of therapy, for example, anti-fungal, anti-infective, cardiovascular, contraceptive, dermatology, gastrointestinal, hematology, immunology, Neurology, oncology, pain management, psychotropic and Urology. The segment of Medical Devices and Diagnostics includes products which are distributed to the big traders, hospitals, and retailers, used mainly in the field by professional doctors, nurses, therapy specialists, hospitals, diagnostic laboratories and clinics. Johnson & Johnson to earn income by the end of 2006 was 53.3 billion dollars the United States and has approximately 115,600 employees worldwide. In 2008, Johnson & Johnson, led by William C. Weldon, as CEO / Chairman of the Board / Director.

Procter & Gamble

2008-10-22T14:53:00.000-07:00

The company ranked fifth in 2008 world admired version of Fortune magazine is Procter & Gamble. Procter & Gamble Company have the body of law in Ohio in 1905. The company was founded by William Procter and James Gamble in 1837. Procter & Gamble focuses on brand products to improve the lives of consumers around the world. Currently the company has marketed more than 300 brands that have been scattered in more than 160 countries. The company operates in more than 80 countries through the Market Development Organization "MDO." MDO includes the official retail customers, channel trade and special teams to countries working to build the brand companies in the local market. MDO organized includes seven areas, namely North America, Western Europe, North-East Asia, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East / Middle East / Africa, China and ASEAN / Australia / India. Companies are grouped into three Global Business Units: P & G Beauty; P & G Family Health; and P & G Household Care. In the P & G Beauty units, including Retail and Professional Hair Care, Skin Care, Feminine Care, Cosmetics, Fine Fragrances and Personal Cleansing. Hair Care is a major business and Feminine Care is the other main business. Brand in P & G Beauty, among others, Pantene, Wella, Olay, Always and Head & Shoulders. In the P & G Family Health, the company offers health care products include Oral Care, Pharmaceuticals, Personal Health and Pet Health and Nutrition. P & G brands Family Health include Actonel, Crest, Iams, Pampers, Bounty and Charmin Brands. In the P & G Household Care, consists of Fabric Care and Home Care, includes TiDE, Ariel, Downy, and Dawn. In Snacks and Coffee, the company divides into two categories, namely Salted Snacks and Coffee. Two brands in Snacks and Coffee - Pringles and Folgers. On 27 January 2005, Procter & Gamble, in cooperation with The Gillette Company. The Gillette Company is a company that produces products for men, for example, a razor blade, razor and penyipanan where equipment and also products available for women. Gillette also provide alkaline batteries and toothbrushes that are able to enter the global market. In 2008, Procter & Gamble is led by Alan G. Lafley, the CEO / Chairman of the Board / President / Director.

Toyota Motor

2008-10-22T14:52:00.000-07:00

The company ranked third in 2008 world admired version of Fortune magazine, is the Toyota Motor Corporation. Toyota Motor was founded in 1933 by Kiichiro Toyoda in Japan. On 31 March 2006, Toyota operated through 523 branches and 219, which coordinated the company joined. The Company has three segments, namely the automotive, financial services and other businesses. In the automotive sector, Toyota is working on the design, production and assembly and sale of passenger cars, vehicles for sports and recreation, minivan and truck and also provide SPAREPART and accessories. In the financial services sector, Toyota provides financial services to dealers and customers to buy or rent a Toyota vehicle. Meanwhile, in other areas of business services Toyota provides design and construction of houses and information technology-related businesses, including intelligent transportation systems and e-commerce. Toyota car to sell more than 170 countries and regions. Toyota is the main market for automotive Japan, North America, Europe and Asia. On 31 March 2006, Toyota obtain opinions from the sales of 202.9 billion dollars the United States and 285,977 people have employees. In 2008, is led by Katsuaki Watanabe as CEO / President.

General Electric

2008-10-22T14:46:00.000-07:00

The world admired company in writing that the company is admired the world based on a survey of Fortune magazine since 1997 up to 2008 to 10,000, including 500 companies from the Fortune global top and the companies that have a minimum income of 8 billion U.S. dollars. The nine criteria used to assess a company admired the world consists of quality management, quality of products and services, innovation, long-term investment value, echo financial, human resources management, the responsibility to the community and environment, wise use company assets and the ability to enter global markets .
The company ranked second in 2008 admired the world's version of Fortune magazine, is General Electric. General Electric, which has merusahaan develop, produce and market the products of various plants, transmission, distribution, control and the empowerment of electricity since the company was formed in 1892. Founder of the company is Thomas Alfa Edison. Products from these companies include household appliances, lighting, industrial automation, medical equipment, technology and sparasi Bioscience, equipment control and distribution of electricity, engine, generator, fuel and nuclear energy, jet engine commercial and military equipments, chemical and empowerment water, equipment and security systems and engineering materials, such as plastic and Silicon. Business run include Infrastructure, Industrial, health care, NBC Universal, Commercial Finance and Consumer Finance. The Company operates in North America, Europe, Asia and South America. At the end of 2006, General Electric has 163.4 billion dollars in income the United States and has nearly 316,000 employees and who is sekitar161.000 employees in the United States. In 2008, is led by Jeffrey R. Immelt as CEO / Chairman of the Board / Director